Defining the environmental and functional characteristics of the buildings used to produce prickly pear dried puree in terms of food hygiene and safety

Sun-dried prickly pear puree, ‘mostarda’, is a traditional food mostly produced in Eastern Sicily (Italy) by cooking and concentrating fruit juice. The artisan production process takes place in buildings not designed for maintaining hygiene. It is well-known that the right organisation and building quality in food production influences food safety, allowing greater control over any infestation and simplifying cleaning. So, by means of building meta-design which analyses the production requirements of the main producers of prickly pear puree, production areas which provide appropriate levels of hygiene have been meta-designed without essentially modifying the traditional process. The meta-design approach was able to identify the necessary production areas and their respective functional and environmental requisites as well as their reciprocal links. The main results are a series of design reference layouts aimed at simplifying production activities by implementing the necessary functional organisation both as regards single sections as well as the entire production process such that HACCP can be optimised.