Grilstad primarily uses Swedish meat. All our beef and pork are bought in Sweden. In the list of ingredients you can read that we use more than 100 g meat to produce 100 g finished product. We haven’t miscalculated! We dry the salami products for three weeks before they are ready to be sliced and packed. During the process of drying, the natural water in the meat evaporates. This way the finished sausage weighs less then the meat it is made out of. Accordingly we use more than one kilo meat to produce one kilo salami! A bacteria culture consisting of a lactic acid bacterium is added to the meat. A lactic acid bacterium has nothing to do with milk, but it creates lactic acid, an organic acid that lowers the pH value, which breaks down the meat in the sausage. If you are allergic to, or hypersensitive to milk protein or lactose you can still eat our salami. When the sausage is cold-smoked the culture of bacteria will multiply and the pH goes down. This is called fermentation and is the same process used when making cheese, wine, or beer. It is an old traditional method prolonging the durability of the provisions. When the pH in a product goes down it becomes somewhat sour (acid) and will stay fresh longer. We put sugar in the sausage batter when we produce salami products; sugar is "food" for the lactic acid bacterium and will kick-start the fermentation. But when the salami is ready to be eaten, all sugar is already consumed by the fermentation process, accordingly there is no sugar left in the finished salami. We only use fresh garlic in our salami products. For the sausages containing garlic we have bought whole garlic that we peel ourselves before we mix it into the sausage batter. Fresh garlic is used for the excellent taste but also because it contains antioxidants, which prolongs the durability of the products.