Irradiation:: A critical control point in ensuring the microbiological safety of raw foods

The widespread and increasing incidence of foodborne diseases and the resultant social and economic impact on the human population have brought food safety to the forefront of public health concerns. This has prompted public health authorities worldwide to reassess their methods of food safety assurance, and to resort to a more cost-effective, preventive method that is known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP). Ensuring food safety depends on effective control measures, i.e. methods to prevent food contamination and, when necessary, decontamination. Present production methods cannot totally prevent food contamination, and the complexity of food handling and processing provides ample opportunity for contamination as well as survival and growth of pathogenic organisms. The application of an HACCP-based approach as a method for the management of hazards of the food chain demonstrates the need for applying a cold decontamination treatment as a control measure in the production of foods which are to be marketed raw or minimally processed. Irradiation (referred to as cold pasteurization) is such a control measure in the production of several types of raw or minimally-processed foods such as poultry, meat and meat products, fish, seafood, and fruits and vegetables. In the production of these foodstuffs, irradiation is thus a Critical Control Point. It has the potential to eliminate vegetative forms of bacterial pathogens as well as parasites. Moreover, irradiation fulfills other criteria for a Critical Control Point, i.e. critical limits (minimum and maximum doses) can be established and monitored, and process control is well known. Corrective actions can also be taken when necessary. Irradiation is a safe technology and has been recognized as such by the FAG/WHO Coder Alimentarius Commission. It certainly merits the attention of industry and public health authorities. Today, 40 countries permit the irradiation of one or more foodstuffs: 12 countries have approved its use for pathogen control in poultry, 7 other for use in meats and 13 in fish and seafood.