Stagionello and the Cuomo Method: Innovation Never Stops. The Next Frontier Starts with Proteins.
From meat maturation to dry curing fish. Today, the R&D team led by Dr. Alessandro Cuomo is opening a new chapter, aimed at the restaurant industry, hospitality and nutraceutical applications.
There are companies that innovate to meet the needs of the market. And then there are those that choose to work today on what the market will understand tomorrow.
This is the philosophy that has guided the Stagionello ® Research & Development team for years: a multidisciplinary laboratory where technology, engineering, food science and gastronomic experimentation converge to study new processes applied to animal proteins.
Leading the team is Dr. Alessandro Cuomo, inventor of Stagionello® curing technologies, who has made continuous innovation the cornerstone of a journey that began many years ago.
In 2008, when dry aging was still far from achieving the widespread adoption it would later reach in professional foodservice, the first Maturmeat ® cabinets and curing chambers were introduced.
At their core was a concept that was highly innovative at the time: introducing pH control into the meat maturation process, transforming a procedure traditionally entrusted largely to experience into a process that was progressively more measurable, controllable and repeatable.
Then came fish
With the Pesciugatore ® and the development of pH Dry Curing, research expanded into the world of fish, exploring new possibilities for the maturation and transformation of seafood.
This evolution opened up new perspectives both technologically and gastronomically, contributing to the development of products that, until just a few years ago, would have been difficult to imagine in contemporary foodservice.
Now a new chapter begins
The images tell the story of one of the working sessions of the Stagionello ® technical and technology team: technicians, designers and specialists gathered around the same table.
What they are working on, however, cannot yet be revealed. For now, we can only anticipate the direction of the research.
The next step goes beyond simple preservation or maturation and places proteins, their transformation, their gastronomic value and new perspectives related to therapeutic nutraceutical applications at the center of the research activity.
It is a project looking towards the future of the restaurant industry, major hotel groups, retail chains and food professionals, where technology and scientific knowledge can become tools for developing new products, new processes and new business models.
Work and discussions with the relevant institutions and Ministries are already underway. And a first major international appointment is now approaching.
In the second week of September, the team will be in Ecuador as part of a mission with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, for a training programme aimed at 150 professionals, within the framework of gastronomic exchange initiatives with IILA – the International Italo-Latin American Organization.
For now, we cannot reveal anything more. We can, however, extend an invitation to those who manage a restaurant, a hotel chain or the food division of a major retail group today: pay close attention to what is happening. After working to transform the way meat is matured and to develop new possibilities for fish, Stagionello® is preparing to take the next step. This time, the starting point is proteins.
The destination, for now, remains inside our laboratory.