PhilMech to put up 1st comm’l irradiation facility

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) plans to put up the country’s first commercial irradiation technology facility that will help extend the shelf life of food products.

According to PhilMech, it plans to conduct a feasibility study with other government agencies on the establishment of the first commercial food irradiation facility in the Philippines.

Irradiation is a technology used in food processing to reduce the spoilage of food.

PhilMech said irradiation technology could be used for the country’s top food product exports like mango, pineapple and banana.

“Irradiation technology can address a wide range of issues related to the food sanitary standards of many countries, like pests and
pathogens. Also, irradiated foods have a longer shelf life,” PhilMech executive director Rex Bingabing said.

PhilMech would tap the expertise and facilities of the Philippine
Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) of the Department of Science and Technology for the project.

Bingabing said the PNRI has a gamma irradiation facility (GIF) which has been treating not-so-large quantities of food products upon special request from private firms.

“The products which have been treated by the GIF of PNRI include garlic, onion, black pepper, ginger powder, chili powder and turmeric; dehydrated vegetables and meat, as well as herbal products such as banaba powder, sambong powder, guava leaves, pandan flakes and lagundi powder,” he said.

Apart from the PNRI, PhilMech also intends to work with the Department of Trade and Industry’s Bureau of Export Trade Promotion, the University of the Philippines in Los Banos-Postharvest Horticulture Training and Research Center; as well as agencies under the DA such as Bureau of Plant Industry, Bureau of Agriculture and Fishery Products Standards, Agriculture and Marketing Assistance Service, Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries, and the National Food Authority
for the irradiation facility.

PhilMech is hopeful that once the irradiation facility is
operational, the private sector would adopt the technology.

Bingabing said some 50 countries already accept irradiated food.
Some 32 countries, meanwhile, use the technology to treat a wide variety of food products and ingredients.