Cherkizovo Group unveils its exclusive processed meat products

Cherkizovo Group is Russia's largest sausage producer with an assortment of over 200 items, including cooked and smoked sausages, dry sausages and a variety of deli meats under the flagship Cherkizovo and Cherkizovo Premium brands. The Company maintains a strong focus on developing new product recipes to cater to the needs of a diverse customer audience. Today, we will share insights into some of our most highly rated and remarkable products.

The product was developed by Cherkizovo Group’s experts and launched into commercial production in 2006. It is made with pork ham and bacon seasoned with a mixture of red and black peppers, ginger and nutmeg, which highlight its natural meat flavour. Thanks to a distinctive meat grinding technology unmatched at the time of the product launch, the sausage boasts a recognizable mosaic-like texture. The product has been enjoying strong sales over many years.

The product is made of coarsely chopped pork and is a best-seller among hams in both the Company’s product portfolio and the Russian market overall. The ham features permeable cellulose casing and involves the use of natural smoking, which gives it a distinctive and recognizable taste and aroma. It also boasts an optimal balance of coarsely chopped lean and fatty meats, setting it apart from other hams. Starting 2022, the Po-Cherkizovsky ham is also available in slices.

Nezhnaya turkey ham (Cherkizovo Premium brand)

This ham is produced exclusively from the meat of turkeys grown in an ecologically pristine area of the Tambov Region. The combination of white turkey breast and red turkey thigh fillets creates a distinctive slice pattern and ensures a tender and juicy texture while maintaining a low fat content (6%). Similar to the Po-Cherkizovsky ham, the turkey ham features permeable cellulose casing and involves the use of natural smoking. A blend of alder and oak wood smoking chips gives the ham a bright yet balanced taste that would satisfy the palate of all deli meat lovers. The whole-block product was launched in 2021, with slices added in 2022.

Turkey carpaccio is yet another unique product in our portfolio. Historically, the term “carpaccio” was used for thinly sliced raw beef only. The dish was named after Vittore Carpaccio, the Venetian Renaissance artist known for the characteristic red and white tones of his work. Since then, however, the recipe has undergone significant changes and today refers to various sliced products other than beef.

Launched in 2021, Cherkizovo-branded turkey carpaccio is a raw smoked product made from turkey breast fillets. It is high in protein (34%) and low in fat (2%), which makes it a perfect choice aligned with the global healthy eating trend. The carpaccio comes in thin slices of a fixed diameter (58 mm) and thickness (1–2 mm). This option is very convenient for consumers and was a pioneer in the market at the time of the product launch.

The word “salami” derives from Latin “sal”, which means salt. In Europe, it originally referred to salted meat, later extending to cured and dry sausages.

The Flamenco salami under the Cherkizovo Premium brand is made using the Company’s proprietary recipe based on traditional methods of salami production. Made from pork ham and bacon chopped into 3 mm pieces, it features a distinctive fine-grained texture. Pepper and mustard finish the dish and give it a typical Mediterranean flavor. The salami is made in Kashira near Moscow at a robotized plant with a fully automated production process. This makes it a product where centuries-old traditions meet the most advanced meat processing technologies.

Fuet is a cured sausage originating from Catalonia (in Catalan, “fuet” means a whip). It is made with pork, including pork belly, seasoned with natural spices and covered in a powdery dusting of benign white mold, which gives it a characteristic flavor.

By launching Fuet under the Cherkizovo Premium brand in 2019, we were one of the first companies to start making this product using an authentic technology. It is based on the methods of meat preparing and mincing, smooth fermentation and drying, with a weight loss of some 50–55%, and the use of a combination of mold (Penicillium nalgiovense) strains, key to the product’s distinctive taste.

Our Cerveletti features the typical fine-grained texture and flavor of traditional dry cervelats. It is a distinct square-shaped sausage, which certainly stands out on the shelf. In developing this product, we used starter cultures that enable the fermentation cycle to take place directly in sausage forming machines. This results in the square shape of the sausage, which is retained throughout the production process. The product was launched in late 2021 and is now supplied to retail chains in a variety of formats: whole block, half block, and slices.