Pancetta launched by award winning Hannan Meats

Pancetta has been developed by Hannan Meats, the Northern Ireland meat and bacon processor which has twice won the Supreme Champion Award in the influential UK Great Taste Awards.

The pancetta is cured from pork belly and spices and air-dried in one of Hannan's four Himalayan salt chambers in its processing complex at Moira in county Down.

The company's latest bacon product has been created using a unique recipe developed by Peter Hannan, managing director of Hannan Meats, and Paul Clarke, an experienced chef who also heads up En Place Foods, a specialist developer of culinary oils and other innovative products primarily for foodservice. En Place is owned by the duo.

Peter Hannan, commenting on the new pancetta product, says: "We are working on a number of bacon products using our expertise in curing meats in a salt chamber that we've developed for pork sourced from our established network of pig farmers.

"Our longstanding focus is on creating innovative and premium food products with outstanding taste.

"We've noticed a growing interest in cured meats offering deliciously different flavours, particularly from chefs throughout the British Isles, and a number the chefs we work with have asked us for the product.

"The new pancetta also draws on our knowledge of bacon curing that led to the introduction of our own and unique Moyallon Guancialle, a highly innovative product which won our first Supreme Champion award in the Great Taste Awards in 2012. Guanciale has become a popular innovation with chefs and consumers throughout the UK and Ireland."

The pancetta is salt cured with spices and then air-dried in the Himalayan chamber for four weeks. It is available in blocks, sliced, and cubed.

Hannan Meats is also developing a range of tasty bacon products using a sugar-pit technique it has pioneered.

Hannan Meats is the UK's most successful company in the UK Great Taste Awards, winning its second Supreme Champion Award in 2016 for its outstanding salt aged Glenarm Shorthorn Four Rib Roast.

In addition to winning the top award on two separate occasion, Hannan Meats has won more Great Taste gold stars than any other company in the UK and Ireland. The company is widely recognised for its butchery expertise, knowledge of maturation techniques, its meat preparation expertise, and for the quality and provenance of its farm supply chain.

Visit: http://www.hannanmeats.com/