Tiny label on irradiated fruit angers environment group

Irradiated Australian mangoes have returned to New Zealand shops - but with only minuscule labelling to say they have been zapped on their way to the fruit bowl.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth says consumers risk not only cell damage from eating the fruit, but also eye-strain from trying to make out letters 0.5mm wide, no thicker than paper-clip wire.

Northern Territory mangoes first appeared in Fruit World stores round Auckland with yellow and green stickers, no larger than small postage stamps but with clear lettering declaring they had been "irradiated to protect the New Zealand environment".

But Friends of the Earth co-director Bob Tait says the stores have in recent weeks been stocking mangoes without that sticker, relying instead on a tiny reference to "irradiated fruit" squeezed on a smaller label advertising the grower's brand.

That label was on the earlier fruit, but without the irradiation message. Importer Fusion Marketing of Pukekohe says the Australian grower, Tou's Garden, is simply saving costs from needless duplication.

Mr Tait, who initially thought there was no irradiation labelling and had to use glasses to read the new wording when the Herald drew it to his attention, said the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code was remiss in not stipulating a minimum size.

But he said the code still required irradiated food to be "prominently" labelled, and claimed the mangoes were therefore being sold illegally.

Food Safety Authority spokesman Gary Bowering disagreed, saying the irradiation wording was larger than marketing statements on the same sticker.

"Our opinion is that it is perfectly fine," he said, although adding that anyone was entitled to lodge a complaint with Auckland Regional Public Health.

 

Safety debate

* Although the Food Safety Authority has said "hundreds" of reports have shown irradiation to be safe, US group Public Citizen claims it produces toxic chemicals.

* A scientific study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found a build-up of chemicals called cyclobutanones in irradiated mangoes and pawpaws.

* It said in a submission to Food Standards Australia New Zealand in 2002 that these had been shown to cause significant damage to DNA in rats and human cell cultures.

* A Food Standards safety assessment found several new compounds called radiolytic products were created by irradiation, but that their total concentration was very low.