S.T.S. srl offers numerous services and strives to meet its customers' needs in full. It does so by offering scientific and technological consulting which includes the review and optimization of the production process, and through company auditing. During the production plant design phase, it prepares detailed layouts. In addition, it offers constant facility management support.

Plant engineering calculations for every type of meat product: creation of Refrigeration Circuits and plant engineering calculations made using the most sophisticated software for the food industry (UNILAB).

Conducting research into the problems associated with every stage of production:

° Receiving, quality inspection and selection of the raw materials: all the variables associated with the raw materials and their consequent ability to absorb salt, such as the weight class of the hams and how they are trimmed.

° Measuring the pH value, the colour of the meat, the width of the leg, the thickness of the outer layer of fat, marbling and whether it is in season. We therefore manage suppliers, taking care to ensure that they provide raw materials that have certain special characteristics.

° Formulation of recipes for P.D.O. Prosciutto, domestic and foreign Prosciutto Crudo, typical Coppa Piacentina (cured pork neck or shoulder),  Culaccia (dry-cured ham from the boneless loin of the hind leg), Fiocco (portion of dry-cured ham from the lean side of the joint), Lombi (cured loin of pork), Salame Felino and Salame Milano salamis, other types of dry sausage products with different specific grain sizes, and cooked Prosciutto Cotto ham.

° Measuring weight loss and the % of salt absorbed during the salting and pre-resting stages so as to assess, from the outset, the quality of the meat, the amount of moisture lost and, therefore, the ability of the ham to absorb the salt during salting.

° Correcting plant operations: measurement of weight loss in subsequent processing stages (end of the refrigeration stage, pre-curing and curing), of the aw in the product at the end of the refrigeration stage and of the concentration of NaCl distribution  throughout the internal muscular mass.

° Assessment of the finished aged and/or fermented or the cooked finished product: we check for the presence/absence of defects in cured products, "scrutinising" the hams to discover if there are any gambo (the narrow, tapering portion of the leg) defects, vena defects (affecting the muscle near the femoral vein and manifesting in the fiocco, or lean side of the joint), anchetta (small, shell-shaped bone on the haunch) defects, and checking for the presence of the phenol defect. If analyses must be conducted, this is done in accredited laboratories. The company organises panel tests and puts together organoleptic data sheets for each product.

We participate in the process of  production engineering and, subsequently, in the production process:

° Through study and validation of every stage of the production process.

° By reviewing critical steps and developing suitable modifications or innovations to introduce to the processing technology used, in order to obtain a food product that is microbiologically stable and whose qualitative features are equal to those of traditional Prosciutto hams.

Company auditing for quality assurance: we help to identify the elements which should be checked (HACCP plans), and thus the facility's critical control points (CCPs), SSOPs and GMPs, tolerance ranges, monitoring procedures, the analytical testing of the raw materials and finished products, and perform environmental swabs.

The services we offer include the Management and Operation of the entire production facility, from operations management to staff administration (e.g. managing the operations of cooperatives during production).