Electron beam processing in food industry - technology and costs

After nearly 40 years of research and thousands of positive experimentations, the fact that ionising radiations could be used for food preservation has been taken into account by the joint Expert Committee of the UN agencies, FAO, WHO and IAEA, who recommended this type of treatment in 1981 allowing doses up to 10 kGy. The market for irradiated food is actually small, but it could develop rapidly. National authorities who establish the regulations are becoming very active: so, in 1984, the US FDA has issued a proposed rule to regulate the commercial applications of food irradiation. It is timely to propose a MODEL that should really convince administration, food industry executives and consumers organizations that food irradiation is more than academic speculation: an industrial processing and an economical imperative. To this aim, we have defined an integrated model assembling (a) a sample product; (b) the optimal treatment conditions for this product, including a reliable dosimetry control system; and (c) a most efficient and competitive treatment unit that can suit a wide range of industrial needs. (author)