Process for the production of a sauce containing meat

A process for the production of a sauce comprising minced meat, tomato, vegetables, edible oils or fats and optional complementary ingredients, comprising:

• i) providing a heated conveyor belt to receive pellets of a mixture of minced meat, said conveyor belt being heated to a temperature of 160° C.-280° C.;
• ii) providing a convection tunnel oven with said heated conveyor belt running through said convention tunnel oven;
• iii) providing a cooker with said tomato, said at least one vegetable, said edible oils or fats and said optionally at least one complementary ingredient;
• wherein the process further comprises:
• a) arranging said pellets on said heated conveyor belt, and subjecting said pellets to both of said convection tunnel oven and said heated conveyor belt for a time of between 0.5 and 30 minutes, thus obtaining baked pellets, said convection tunnel oven being heated to a temperature between 160° C. and 280° C.;
• b) adding said baked pellets to said cooker thereby forming a sauce mixture;
• and
• c) cooking the sauce mixture for a predetermined time;
• wherein said pellets to be baked in the oven of step a) have a length of between 10 mm and 70 mm, and a thickness of between 3 mm and 15 mm thereby facilitating maintenance of particle size of the minced meat in the produced sauce;
• wherein said facilitating maintenance of said particle size of said pellets is due to omitting mechanical stress from a mixing means;
• wherein in step b) said cooker is provided with a sauce mixture mixing means and said pellets being introduced into said cooker already containing inside said cooker a fried mixture obtained from said vegetables, from the optional complementary ingredients and from said edible oils or fats, as well as the tomato, which was subsequently added to said fried mixture;
• and
• wherein said tunnel is provided with oven means for injecting jets of steam and hot air having a temperature of 200° C.-300° C.