Penicillium salamii strain ITEM 15302: A new promising fungal starter for salami production

• Strain ITEM 15302 of new species P. salamii proved to be a valid starter for meat industry.
• First use of P. salamii for the seasoning of fresh pork sausages
• Sensory analyses of dry-cured sausages ripened with P. salamii and P. nalgiovense.
• Comparison of lipolytic and proteolytic activity of P. salamii and P. nalgiovense

Traditional sausages are often considered of superior quality to sausages inoculated with commercial starter cultures and this is partially due to the action of the typical house microflora. Penicillium nalgiovense is the species commonly used as starter culture for dry-cured meat production. Recently a new species, Penicillium salamii, was described as typical colonizer during salami seasoning. In order to understand its contribution to the seasoning process, two different experiments on curing of fresh pork sausages were conducted using P. salamii ITEM 15302 in comparison with P. nalgiovense ITEM 15292 at small and industrial scale, and the dry-cured sausages were subjected to sensory analyses. Additionally, proteolytic and lipolytic in vitro assays were performed on both strains. P. salamii ITEM 15302 proved to be a fast growing mould on dry-cured sausage casings, well adapted to the seasoning process, with high lipolytic and proteolytic enzymatic activity that confers typical sensory characteristics to meat products. Therefore, P. salamii ITEM 15302 was shown to be a good candidate as new starter for meat industry.