Production Process

Felsineo strives continuously to improve itself and its products, implementing new technologies and optimizing company processes. Total commitment to quality together with passion, expertise and experience are the company’s core values.
Manufacturing processes are entirely carried-out in the plant at Zola Predosa, in the province of Bologna, where all the grinding, casing and tying, cooking, packaging and shipment are done.

Preparation

The mortadella is produced using only the finest raw materials, rigorously selected and controlled.
To obtain a mortadella of the highest quality, the first big task is the choice of the meat, which is entrusted to people with more than 20 years of experience in the field.
Only selected pork cuts are used to make the Felsineo mortadella. The first step in the process is to finely grind the lean pork to a paste, then add it to the mixer along with the fat cubes and the rest of the ingredients (salt, pepper and in some cases pistachios). The uncooked mixture is then stuffed into natural or synthetic cellulose casings.
The mortadella is then cooked in hot dry air ovens (computer-controlled): the final temperature in the centre of the product is at least 70°C for large mortadellas and at least 74°C for smaller ones. As a general guide, about one-hour cooking time is needed for each centimetre of the diameter (for instance, a 30kg and 20cm wide mortadella would take 20 hours to cook).
After cooking, the mortadella is then cooled and either vacuum or protective-atmosphere packed (it takes 3 days in total to complete the production cycle). Packing the mortadella in this way, combined with the correct conservation temperature, stabilizes and locks in the organoleptic properties for the entire shell life of the product.

Cold Rooms

The low temperatures are maintained via control probes inside the room which send data continuously to the control software.

Grinding Equipment

The most modern technology is used to guarantee product safety. The grinding equipment grinds the raw meat without compromising its most distinctive features. The paste is then fed through 0.8mm holes and transported to the mixers.

Fat Preparation

The fat from the throat of the animal is cut into cubes, washed in hot water, dripped dry then added to the meat paste. These cubes are the characteristic white squares embedded into each mortadella and visible in each slice.

Casing

Semi-automatic machines are used to fill the rich paste into the food casings, leaving the traditional tying to human operators, where necessary.

Ovens and Cooling Mist

Advanced software combined with probes, placed in the product core, maintain close control over this extremely delicate stage. The special ovens are kept on around the clock, feeding in hot dry air that takes the core temperature up to at least 70°C. The cooling mists after cooking are controlled by the same software and produced by a jet of vaporized cold water and chillers.

Packaging lines and Traceability

On leaving the cooling mists, the mortadellas can then be packaged on vacuum flow pack machines. Data is uploaded automatically in the labelling stage at the end of the line, guaranteeing traceability of all the various stages of the production cycle, providing a full history of each mortadella, from the meats used to the final destination.