05.10.2011 -

By Michele Scozzai

 

In 1870 Trieste was a different city. Besieged by requests for the local capitalist class, Austria had recently opened the first train line between Trieste and Vienna. Commercial traffic took off and the maritime sector experienced one of its best periods: on the eve of the fist world war, the port was one of the seven most important in the world.

 

Industry, too, -at the turn of the century-found fertile ground in Trieste and at least 35-40,000 people from the rest of the peninsula flooded into the city in search of work and their fortune. One of these was my grandfather's father. When my great-grandfather arrived in Trieste, after God only knows how many sacrifices along the way, he opened a shop: the family products were an immediate hit paving the way for us to continue the dream of this rather bad-tempered mountain man.

 

Stand out

I'm part of the fourth generation of Triestine Masè: the company still carries the family name and has grown in a way that I'm sure my great-grandfather would have wanted. Over the last forty years it has been transformed from an artisanal workshop into a listed company with over 100 employs, a turnover of 11 million Euros, and 18 points of sale. We produce almost exclusively typical Triestine charcuterie products: the most popular of which is hot prosciutto cotto (cooked ham) and which exists nowhere else in Italy.

 

In the last few years the company felt the need to change, to reinvent itself. Competition is fierce and if you want to stay in the market you have to stand out: standing still - in ours, as in other sectors, means death. That's why, with some trepidation and some excitement for the challenges ahead, we began working with AREA Science Park and with a new way, for us, of creating innovation. Hot cooked ham is a staple of the Trieste diet. In the city it represents almost 25% of our sales.

 

It's our driving force, our flagship product. But this was a thorn in my side which had been tormenting me for more than ten years. Italian law divides food products into cold products and hot products and never the twain shall meet. If a product leaves the factory at a temperature between 0° and 4°C it has to arrive to the consumer at the same temperature and vice versa: if it leaves hot it has to stay hot until it reaches the customer. Our hams are cooked at the plant during the night and, like bread, are delivered to the retailers hot in the morning.

 

The problem is that in just a few short hours it cools down, having a detrimental effect on quality. Local health authorities have always tolerated, though not willingly, this habit because of its century-old history. The law makes it impossible to export the product not just to other parts of Italy but even to the local area: it's hard enough to keep the temperature constant on the trip to Monfalcone, approximately 30km away. We tried everything: heat lamps, steam etc. but to no avail and prosciutto cotto, as everybody knows, is a dish best served warm.

 

Meeting AREA and the turning point

The turning point came in 2005. That year, I received a visit from members of AREA Science Park's Technology Transfer Services. They asked me if I had a problem, and told me that they were there to solve it (or at least try to). At the beginning I didn't take them seriously and to be honest I made no attempt to hide my skepticism: inside I felt that this would be the yet another experiment doomed to fail.

 

Not to mention the fact that I'd always believed that the laboratories in Padriciano and Basovizza were involved in scientific research with little to do with industrial applications, research for research's sake, with little economic or social benefit. But I didn't have anything to lose and so I accepted to go to battle with my hams once more. A losing battle as far as I was concerned. But this time, together with, and thanks to AREA, we won

 

Ham and tomato

AREA began a patent search, and after a few weeks brought to my attention the fact that for some time the preserves sector had been using a certain technology to treat tomatoes which could possibly be adapted to our purpose. A prototype was built and health and safety issues were evaluated. We moved to the SSICA in Parma (Experimental Station for the Food Preserving Industry) for the first tests. We needed some sort of equipment to heat the food from inside, given that all our previous attempts at heating it from outside had failed. We chose a machine which uses a series of needle electrodes to keep the product at a constant temperature.

 

In Parma a ham was taken and filled with probes: the lab rather looked like an operating theatre. When the machine was turned on, I held my breath. A monitor displayed the ham's internal temperature: it had to stay above the 60°C limit. I don't know how much time passed, but the temperature held and it was the most enormous satisfaction. 'It's alive' I shouted, 'It's alive' feeling like Peter Cushing in the role of Victor Frankenstein. It was at that moment that I realised how close we were to our goal: the road was still long and difficult, but we'd taken an important step forward.

 

Finishing touches to technology

AREA continued to work with me: we analysed the technology and checked to see if it could be patented: even though it was widely known, it had been applied to sectors completely different to our own. There was nothing to stop us depositing a European patent. The definitive prototype, built by a company in Pordenone and certified by SSICA, was ready: the health authority gave its approval and soon, we began producing the first 100 machines. The prototype looks like a normal slicing machine for ham, like those you see in supermarkets, but with a few small differences: firstly, we added a second flexible clamp, so that the temperature remains constant no matter what the size of the ham.

 

The slicer has a series of needles to which the ham is fixed and which are connected to a transformer: when the machine is 'on' a high-frequency but very low-voltage (therefore harmless) current runs through the needles and clamp heating the ham from inside. A microprocessor and a series of thermal probes guarantee a constant temperature throughout. The holder can be fully disassembled and cleaned, and has optimal design, usability and functionality. The fact that it is portable means, of course, that we can finally transport hot ham to other locations. You could say that it is innovation at the service of tradition - one of the objectives that we shared with AREA from the very beginning.

 

From idea to development plan

It wasn't going to be profitable to keep the machining running for the time necessary to transport the ham abroad or to distant cities, so we came up with a different solution: cold distribution to the destination point and then heating the product to 60°C using a similar machine to the one we had designed, but with a few modifications. It was time for Masè's industrial development plan, drawn up with the help of AREA three years earlier, to come into play.

The results, for a company like ours, were anything but negligible: 2.5 million Euros a year on our turnover, 10 or so more jobs in the company and tens more externally, and new investments to the tune of at least 650,000 Euros split between plants, service and research projects. The plan also included the opening of a series of concept stores under the 'Masè Salumeria and Ristorazione' brand where customers can either eat in store or buy products to take away.

 

The first concept store was opened in Trieste but there are three others in Grado, Udine and Rome. They will all soon have the heated ham holder. The number of stores that we'll be able to open in the future will depend on our resources and the partnerships we manage to set up: our aim is to open around twenty within the next two years. It will be a sort of franchise: we have already received expressions of interest from businesspeople in different European cities and we will gradually evaluate every single proposal.

 

The concept stores let us control sales and the diffusion of our brand, marketing an innovative format and our own recipes, which are matched to traditional Triestine products (such as our cold meats, ricotta cheese from Carso and Bagnoli oil) and products from Croatia or the Val Rendena (such as speck). The results we've had have been exceptionally good. If my company's and AREA's paths should meet again, I'll be happy: but next time I promise to leave my skepticism at home.