TAEC eyes quality food exports

THE Tanzania Atomic Energy Commission (TAEC) is planning to install the multipurpose irradiator in Dar es Salaam for simultaneous treatment of different foods to enhance quality and safety.

Irradiator is a machine that exposes products to gamma radiation to kill germs and insects or for other purposes. Food, food containers, spices, fruits, plants and medical supplies are the products most commonly irradiated.

The envisaged state-of-the-art facility is expected to play a pivotal role in advancing the country’s food preservation and export sectors, among others.

Food irradiation is a processing and preservation method involving exposure of food to specified doses of ionising radiation such as gamma rays, electrons, and X-rays in a radiation shielded chamber.

TAEC’s Director General (DG) Prof Lazaro Busagala said the Commission has decided to embark on the key project in order to improve and standardise Tanzania’s food preservation and exporting sectors.

He said the envisaged facility will have a capacity of extending life span in food storage for diverse products, including meat, milk, fishes and others, the development which will greatly assist traders who involve in the food exportation sector, as well as other public institutions.

“Tanzania is still grappling with a shortage of needed technologies to help preserve food products for reasonably long hours and export the products while still fresh and at the required international standards,” he stated.

He detailed that the highly-scientific food preservation facility will use high-tech methods, including several processes with the objective to kill or impair the reproduction capacity of undesired living organisms, thereby eliminating health risks or to affect the morphology of the product in a beneficial way for extending the shelf life.

“During irradiation, DNA or RNA in the nuclei of cells is damaged by direct action of the ionising radiation or due to the indirect action of free radicals generated on radiolysis of cellular,” he noted.