[en] Each morning hundreds of boxes filled with frozen seafood, dried fruits and vegetables, traditional oriental medicines and health foods are queued up in a storeroom in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. They will undergo a process similar to security screening at airports, but with higher intensity beams of photons or electrons, as part of a food irradiation programme installed with IAEA support over the last two decades. Depending on the dose, food irradiation ensures that root vegetables and fruits do not sprout or ripen prematurely; that parasites are killed and spices are decontaminated; that salmonella is destroyed; and that fungi that could spoil meat, poultry and seafood is eliminated. The process of food irradiation was first introduced in Viet Nam in 1999 with the help of the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and a large market for irradiated products has since opened up, significantly increasing the ability of companies to export their food products. Food irradiation has matured into a mainstay of the country’s food industry and is an important contributor to the country’s agricultural competitiveness.