By MICK CALDER*
What's in a name? When I first heard of "cold pasteurisation" I thought someone was having me on.
Later, it was called "electronic pasteurisation" and I started to get the idea. It's a euphemism for irradiating food to kill bugs.
But any process that needs to hide behind a euphemism has to have a marketing problem. While it might be good for consumers, since it supposedly produces safer food, they might object to their comestibles being blitzed by some electronic ray gun. Beam me up a steak, Scottie.
The process has been around for about 50 years but attracted little interest here and caught on in only a relatively minor way overseas. It has been used to ensure that dry goods or food products such as grains, herbs, spices and occasionally poultry meat are bug-free.
Recent meat scares in the United States brought more interest in irradiation. First, the Federal Drug Administration and then the Department of Agriculture approved techniques for irradiating meat products. The international symbol for irradiation, the radura (a green flower inside a broken circle), must be displayed on treated food to alert consumers.
The treatment uses gamma rays, x-rays or electron beams to kill pathogens and to reduce the incidence of spoilage organisms in the meat without the use of heat. Mainly hamburger patties are treated as they are prone to contamination.
As the treatment involves radiation and all its hazards, the technology is not particularly user-friendly. Also for the most effective treatment the product should be in shallow packs, to allow the rays to penetrate.
Despite the recent plague of meat product recalls in the US, largely due to contamination by E coli, but also salmonella and listeria, and the enthusiastic industry view that the US public can be persuaded that irradiation is the best way to provide safer meat, the technology has taken a while to get off the ground.
Promoters of the process, typically those who have invested large sums in setting up the facilities, are convinced of its effectiveness in combating the problem.
And usage seems to be picking up. Reports indicate that large US meat companies such as IBP and Cargill are using irradiation. This raises the question as to why they aren't attacking the problem at source rather than zapping the end product.
What does the consumer think? The product is promoted as healthy and safe and early reports indicate a positive consumer reaction.
But Meat and Poultry Online asked recently, Who doesn't like irradiated meat? and pointed to pockets of anti-irradiation sentiment. It cited Grand Island, Nebraska, where some supermarkets have stopped selling irradiated products.
"Some customers had concerns about it, and to be truthful, it just wasn't selling that well," said the president of B&R Stores.
Maybe it takes time for consumers to get used to the idea.
Some optimistic US commentators reckon that irradiation will gain public acceptance faster than pasteurisation. Americans appear less alarmed about the use of growth-promoting hormones and GE food than their counterparts in Europe and New Zealand.
Promoters would definitely need a better marketing gimmick than a euphemism to convince the New Zealand consumer. But then, we don't have their problems, do we?
* Mick Calder is a company manager, agribusiness consultant and freelance writer.
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