Premium meat arrives: aged like wine, matured steaks exceed 180 euros per kilo

Amongst the experiments to be reported is the case of long-aged Fiorentine T-bone steaks that could thus define a 'Supertuscan' category also in meat and not only in wine. Perhaps to be tasted in combination for the more affluent.

In the meantime, the debate is raging between the production and catering sectors as to whether this new zootechnical product, due to its seasoning, should still be categorised in the fresh meat or cured meat segment. "Technically," explains the director of Assica (the association of cured meat industrialists) Davide Calderone, "the legislation (EU Regulation 853/2002) differentiates between meat preparations and meat products. The first are kebabs, hamburgers, sausages. The latter are cold cuts, which by regulation 'must lose the characteristics of fresh meat . Steaks dry aged, once the superficial, oxidised part has been removed, are in fact meat and not meat products'.

"The growing attention to 'dry aged' meat reflects an increasingly conscious demand for high quality beef," explains Assocarni director François Tomei, "and restores value to a product that for years was treated as a mere commodity. We look favourably on this trend, which contributes to the qualification of the entire beef supply chain'.

This is not a fashion or marketing operation, but the recovery of a technical and cultural concept that has always been part of the meat tradition: maturation.

'For a long time,' added Tomei, 'the market has favoured a product perceived as 'very fresh', often to the detriment of a natural and fundamental process such as maturation, which is indispensable for developing tenderness, taste and aromatic complexity. In the Italian context, characterised by a production deficit of around 37% in beef, as Assocarni we are strongly committed to the relaunch of national breeding and production. And even a premium niche such as this can contribute to enhancing the value of quality Italian meat, which has the potential to compete, in taste and tenderness, with the most noble European breeds. Finally,' concluded Tomei, 'in a framework of overall stable consumption, the added value expressed by 'dry aged' meat can reflect positively on the entire supply chain, encouraging producers and favouring a more adequate economic recognition of quality'.