UV Light for Processing Foods

The use of ultraviolet light (UV) light is well established for water treatment, air disinfection and surface decontamination. With the growing negative public reaction over chemicals added to foods, UV light holds considerable promise in food processing. As a physical preservation method, UV irradiation has a positive consumer image. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have concluded that the use of UV irradiation is safe. In 2000, the FDA approved UV-light as alternative treatment to thermal pasteurization of fresh juice products (US FDA 2000). The performance criterion defined by FDA for fruit and vegetable juice processing is a 5-log10 reduction in the number of the target pathogen of concern (US FDA 2000). In addition, the definition of “pasteurization” for foods was recently revised and now includes any process, treatment, or combination thereof, which is applied to food to reduce the most microorganism(s) of public health significance (Food Chemical News 2004). The processes and technologies examined in the above mentioned report include UV irradiation as an alternative to heat that can be used for pasteurization purposes.