Reviving Old Recipes – The Result Exceeded Expectations

Few people know that Krekenavos Agrofirma keeps recipes from various periods in its archives, which serve as a basis for producing something long-forgotten but much-missed and nostalgic. A pork belly and loin roll, exceptionally popular in Lithuania nearly two decades ago, is being produced by professional craftsmen once again and has already received excellent customer feedback.

New “Retro” Line: A Look into the Past According to Raimundas Čironis, a technologist at Krekenavos Agrofirma, the new product line is aptly named “Retro” because all beef and pork products are made according to old, highly popular Lithuanian recipes. The specified beef and pork content is maintained, and the selected spice blend resembles products made twenty years ago. “We are proud that by using old recipes, we managed to restore the original taste of the pork belly and loin roll. It is important to mention that there is no other product like it in Lithuania; only we succeeded in forming a unique product in terms of both taste and appearance. Its diameter is record-breakingly large, making production extremely complex and requiring meticulousness. However, we succeeded and achieved a taste that satisfied the expectations of even the most demanding gourmets,” says R. Čironis.

Special Rolls Made in a Special Way The spiced roll weighs about eight kilograms; each pork belly and loin product is hand-tied with a special string every five centimeters to compress the meat. Later, after smoking and boiling, it is cut into 2.5 kg portions. The specialist says that only Krekenavos Agrofirma craftsmen currently produce rolls of this size, and no one else has managed to replicate this unique taste. For convenience, a half-kilogram version can also be found on store shelves. The technologist emphasizes that innovative technologies were required to ensure that spices are distributed evenly in such large pieces of meat. “We had to blend the old with the new,” he jokes. “Reading the old recipes, we see that it used to take almost a week to properly marinate a roll of this size, but now, using advanced methods, we can do it in 24 hours. We know that in the past, our parents or grandparents didn’t always succeed—often, when cutting a roll of this size, the center would be tasteless while the edges had too many spices. This was due to prolonged and poor-quality marination. We solved this problem, and today we have a product where spices are absorbed evenly, and the shelf life is significantly longer.”

Beef Conquering the Market Raimundas Čironis notes that currently, the selection of beef products in Lithuanian stores is unfortunately very limited. Although this meat is both tasty and healthy, Krekenavos Agrofirma, a part of the “Vikonda” concern, revived another beloved recipe, adding hot-smoked beef hams to the “Retro” line. The technologist says that the high popularity of beef sausages from the “Mėsinga” line influenced this decision. As with the roll, the beef ham production process is complex and only possible with the latest technology. Specialists hand-cut the meat for these products to ensure purity of taste. “We don’t want to sacrifice quality. Specially trained craftsmen cut precisely the ham, belly, or loin when needed. We must ensure the highest quality, and we do so honestly every day,” says Čironis.

The “Retro” line includes milk sausages, cooked sausage, frankfurters, beef ham, pâté, and the special hot-smoked loin and belly roll.