Quality of dry cured ham: Methods for authentication of geographical origin, rearing system and technology

Traceability and authentication of meat and meat products are major concern for consumers, producers and retailers. In Europe, several areas produce high quality dry cured hams under Protected Designation Origin. Efficient and objective methods must be developed to assess origin of dry cured hams. This paper is focused on methods to assess geographical origin, rearing systems and processing conditions. Methods to assess geographical origin are based on multi-analyses of both stable isotopes (O/O, H/H, N/N, C/C,S/S) and trace minerals (Se, Fe, Sr, Cu, Zn...). Genotypes of pigs can be check by biotechnological methods based on DNA analyses (RFLP, microsatellites). Methods to trace feeding system are based on stable isotope measurement or on quantification of organic components (hydrocarbons, poly phenols, fatty acids, vitamins) in muscles and adipose tissues. Up to now, very few methods have been focused on the authentication of specific processing conditions. Up to now, most of the methods remain at the stage of potential tools and needs to be performed on large numbers of samples to be applied with certainty in routine controls. A proper authentication of dry cured hams requires a combination of methods and multivariate statistical analyses. One of the main challenges for the future is to build wide opened data bases easy to use, aggregating data available on dry cured hams.