MINPAHS Operational Group: Innovation project to improve the natural smoking process and control the transfer of contaminants to food

This project aims to introduce improvements in the smoking of meat products and other foods. This process is traditionally carried out in areas where the climate does not allow for drying products for preservation, such as northern Spain and countries in central, eastern, and northern Europe.

The current smoking process in the agri-food industry is traditional direct smoking, which involves burning hardwoods to obtain embers that generate the smoke necessary for the process.

In this process, no type of control is usually carried out, neither of the process conditions nor of the composition of the smoke generated and emitted into the environment for long periods of time. In the case of blood sausage, the smoking process can last up to 15 days.