With the increasing need for food businesses to be sustainable in all they do, every aspect of the business needs to be carefully examined and alternative methods practices or processes investigated.

A method which has been around for a long while but is now under the spotlight due to being very economical and environmentally friendly, is UV irradiation. It means that chemicals do not need to be used which significantly reduces both costs and environmental impact.

Unfortunately the term "irradiation" has received a negative rap. Irradiation actually means that a thing or area is flooded in the radiation from a  specific source. The source can be a variety of things, including Cobalt or even UV light. It is done with food to kill or reduce bacteria to safe levels. Foods that cannot be heated or are not suited to much handling are excellent candidates for some form of irradiation.

Uraniuam is not involved with irradiation food, however unfortunately many think this is what is being used when they hear that food is being irradiated and this has led to a large amount of the negative perception. about this useful food process.

The UV irradiation process involves placing food packaging into an area and flooding it with UV light at 254 nanometres for a set time, depending upon what bacteria is being targetted. During this time the short waves destroys the DNA of any bacteria and spores on the packaging surface. This prevents the cells from dividing and therefore reduces the microbiological load.

This method is already in use in a variety of food businesses, for example in the packaging of asceptic milk products. Wiith it's obvious sustainability advantages, this processimg method will no doubt be seen in more applications in the future.