The irradiation of foods

The irradiation of foods opens the way to new products and processes that are potentially very attractive to the agro-food industry. The treatments have been shown to be safe and their implementation can be adequately controlled. However, to date, these methods have only been used in a very restricted way. We discuss here the reasons for this limited use, the factors likely to affect future development of the technique and its current regulation. The next publication of European Community directives should greatly change the nature of French regulation. In particular, there are likely to be major changes in product labelling, with an obligation not only to label treated products but also to label ingredients and ingredients of constituents of the product as being 'treated by irradiation' or 'treated with ionising radiation'. (authors)