The manufacturing process of fermented sausages thus involves three main steps; formulation,
fermentation and ripening/drying (Fig. 2). Variations in type and amount of raw materials and
manufacturing conditions (e.g. temperature and duration of fermentation and ripening period)
give rise to a wide variety of products with profound regional differences (Fernandes 2009).
Traditionally, sausages producers have relied on the indigenous flora of the meat or from the
environ ent, so called “house flora”, to spontaneously fer ent their products. Sequential
inoculation of a new portion of sausage batter with material from a successfully fermented one,
denoted back-slopping, was/is used to select for a desired bacterial population (Leroy et al. 2006).
To standardize the production, improve consistency of quality and safety, and to shorten the
ageing processes required for flavour formation, the sausage batter nowadays can be inoculated
with commercial starter cultures (Hutkins 2006). Artisan products of a quality that might be
superior to the uniform industrialized products continue to be produced by traditional means
primarily by small manufactures (Leroy et al. 2006). While virtually all of the fermented sausages
in northern Europe are produced with bacterial starter cultures, the percentage in southern
Europe is commonly much lower – accounting for less than 30% of the production in Italy, Spain,
Greece and Portugal when data was provided by Lücke et al. (1990). Seemingly, the rapid
fermentation products using starter cultures do not differ in terms of food safety from the less
acidic ones often produced without starters in southern Europe