Food irradiation combined with refrigeration in food industrial plants

Food irradiation and refrigeration are both physical treatments used for food preservation. The complementarity of their effects on food is the best reason for their combination. Irradiation is essentially used for disinfestation and refrigeration to protect food against non microbial degradations. Refrigeration and irradiation could be combined for shelf life extension of fresh fruits and vegetables or reduction of microflora in animal products, without loss of quality. Freezing must be combined with ionizing treatments if high doses are necessary as it is the case with destruction of pathogens in meat or food sterilization. Some examples of combination of refrigeration and irradiation are routinely applied in some industrial plants in France but it is expected that more and more combined treatments will be used thanks to research