Solutions for ready-to-eat meat and poultry

Ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products play an increasingly popular role in satisfying consumer demand for foods that combine delicious nutrition and a convenient format that fits today's fast-paced lifestyles.

Examples of RTE meat products include:

• Deli and lunch meats
• Hot dogs and fully cooked sausages
• Cooked meat strips and dices
• Cooked whole muscle items

RTE challenges

While packaging for RTE products aims to keep freshness sealed in, once the package is opened, these meats may face a range of pathogenic and bacterial challenges. That’s when ingredient-based preservation solutions become essential to protecting the safety, freshness, and quality of these products.

Although cooking meat kills many bacteria, RTE products can still be vulnerable to the outgrowth of spoilage and pathogenic bacteria. Pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes can resist temperatures up to 160^o F and can easily re-inoculate cooked meats. Clostridium botulinum is easily killed by cooking, but its spores are heat-resistant.

Solutions with multi-faceted benefits

Consumers, retailers, and food-service operators want RTE meat products to be pathogen-free, to have an extended refrigerated shelf-life, and to contain minimal additives. They must also, of course, offer great flavor and texture, not to mention an appetizing appearance (color) and aroma. Meeting all these requirements is a complex challenge, but Corbion’s decades of experience, advanced scientific expertise, and broad, flexible product portfolio can provide all the help you need to successfully meet that challenge.


Our industry-leading Opti.Form® and Verdad® portfolios offer an array of solutions for effectively inhibiting Listeria, Clostridium, and more.

Verdad® solutions: Both powerful and familiar

The Verdad range delivers both efficacy and the simpler labeling options that customers prefer.

Verdad vinegars provide a natural form of acetic acid in high concentration to deliver antimicrobial efficacy, and are buffered to avoid compromising the meat's flavor, texture, and water-holding capacity. And, because vinegars are generally recognized as kitchen cupboard ingredients, they are readily accepted by consumers.
Verdad ferments, which are produced via the fermentation of sugar, help you achieve longer shelf life, pathogen control, and an enhanced meat flavor. They can deliver all the preservative and sensory benefits of natural curing, even stimulating a savory umami flavor in RTE meat products.

Opti.Form® provides safety protection and more

Corbion’s robust portfolio of Opti.Form lactates and diacetate solutions provides spoilage and mold control, while contributing to improved flavor in your product.
Opti.Form PD4, in addition to offering microbial stability and flavor enhancement, helps minimize sodium content in the finished product.