Is education key to acceptance of irradiation?

A diverse group of more than 200 conferees from 17 countries met at McCormick Place in Chicago, US, last week to discuss the food safety and public health benefits of food irradiation and its merits.

Co-organized by the National Food Safety & Toxicology Center at Michigan State University, the First World Congress on Food Irradiation drew representatives from food irradiation equipment and service providers; supermarket chains; restaurants; food service distributors; meat, poultry and fresh produce companies; university researchers, public health officials, trade associations, consumer groups and food industry media.

In her May 5 keynote address, USDA Under-Secretary for Food Safety Elsa Murano said, "Irradiation is the single most effective tool in killing food-borne pathogens. Irradiation is so effective as a single step that to accomplish the same thing you would have to have several technologies that we now have to reduce pathogens."​ Dr. Murano also said that the USDA is moving to accelerate approval of intervention technologies and to educate the public about the safety of irradiated food products.

Ewen Todd, director of the National Food Safety & Toxicology Center at Michigan State University, introduced Murano and opened the Congress. "The reason we made a commitment to organise the congress was to allow all viewpoints to be expressed during the meeting on this subject. Irradiated food gives consumers choices in today's market,"​ Todd said.

Dr. Gerald Moy, staff scientist of the Food Safety Program for the World Health Organisation (WHO), said, "Given its unique ability to destroy pathogens in solid foods, food irradiation may be one of the most significant contributions to public health to be made by food science and technology since pasteurisation was introduced to assure the safety of milk."​

A recurrent theme of the 28 speakers over the two-day event was the need for a concerted education programme to inform consumers on the health and safety benefits of irradiated foods. Executives from Wegmans Food Markets and International Dairy Queen cited their successful introductions of irradiated ground beef products over the past year, demonstrating that once consumers are informed of the health benefits of irradiation, they are positively motivated to try and repurchase irradiated foods.

Morton Satin, adjunct professor at Texas A&M University, called for the formation of an International Council of Food Irradiation, a new knowledge-based organisation that would serve the needs of all parties directly involved in the production and marketing of irradiated foods. The goal of this organisation would be to bring together business leaders from all parts of the agri-food chain, researchers, consumer groups, policymakers and other concerned stakeholders to communicate the health, food safety and quality benefits of irradiated foods to consumers and the industry.

Congress Co-organiser Paisan Loaharanu, an international consultant and former head of Food and Environmental Protection, Joint FAO/IAEA Division, led a wrap-up session that summarised the key conclusions of the two-day Congress. The session concluded that key to successful implementation of food irradiation on a global basis was education to bring about consumer acceptance, the importance of scientific evidence that proves food irradiation is a safe and effective means of improving the hygiene of a number of foods and finally increasing awareness of foodborne illnesses and the threat it poses to consumer health and the industry.

The congress also concluded that increasing public awareness of foodborne illnesses and deaths, recent major food recalls and liability to various sectors of the food industry have prompted the food industry and consumers to adopt food irradiation as an effective technology to guard against foodborne illnesses. Led by major food and agriculture trade associations, food processors, irradiation equipment and service providers and major retail chains in recent years, the number of supermarket stores that offer irradiated meat products has increased dramatically from 84 in mid-June 2000 to some 7,000 from coveing 50 retail chains. Some 2,000 US restaurants including those belong to a major fast food chain, are serving irradiated meat. The volume of irradiated food being marketed has increased significantly in recent years, but the full-market penetration is still small and growth potential is high, the Congress concluded.

Although still small in North America and other parts of the world, the industry is definitely showing signs of strong growth. In Europe, however, food irradiation is still largely outlawed by the European Commission. Indeed recent consideration of scientific evidence indicating that the process has still not been categorically proven as safe has determined that legislation will remain prohibitive. Whether or not the impact of the growth of the industry in other regions and the influence of such far reaching gatherings as last week's congress in Chicago will have any further bearing on the matter is yet to be seen.

Transcripts of presentations will be posted by May 30 on the Congress website​.