Zapped mango imports break out in blotches

Queensland mango growers are upset that their fruit was irradiated and exported to New Zealand - without their knowledge - before erupting with big black blemishes.

Nine tonnes of mangoes were imported recently as the first shipment of irradiated food to arrive here for human consumption, and many d developed black spots or blotches.

The mangoes bear a small yellow sticker saying: "Irradiated to protect the New Zealand environment."

Importer Mark Needham, of Pukekohe firm Fusion Marketing, said he had received no refund claims from retailers and any blemishes could have been caused by mishandling after the mangoes left his care.

"It's not irradiation that's broken them down - I don't know how they are handled after they leave us."

Mr Needham said another 4.5 tonne consignment had arrived in excellent condition from the Brisbane irradiation plant of Steretech, a company which has tried several times since 1987 to open an operation in New Zealand. He hoped to import a shipment each week until the mango season ends next month.

Mr Needham said the fruit was ripened on the tree, but he had asked his Australian agent to ensure mangoes were picked a few days earlier in future "to get a bit more shelf life and give the consumer a better deal".

But Queensland grower Del Norman, who runs a medium-sized mango orchard south of Townsville with her husband Steve, was appalled to learn from the Herald that her fruit was irradiated before breaking out in blemishes.

"That fruit should not be off," she said.

"It should be still holding quite well if it's been refrigerated properly and I would say the irradiation is what's done it - most definitely.

"I find that's pretty alarming. I didn't even know it was in New Zealand for a start. I didn't even know it was being irradiated and I am more than alarmed - if not totally alarmed - that it's breaking down after that time."

Mrs Norman said the batch number on a box supplied to the Herald by the environmental group Friends of the Earth, which has been monitoring the mangoes at the Fruit World chain of shops in Auckland, showed it was picked and packed on December 13.

She said a consignment picked the next day remained in very good condition within Australia. She was worried that the irradiated mangoes could damage the reputation of her orchard and spoil any chance of exporting fruit to New Zealand by more traditional means.

The mangoes had already been treated with the insecticide dimethoate against Queensland fruitfly for the Australian market, and she wondered why they needed to be irradiated.

Another of the three growers who supplied the first mango crop, Alex Johnson, was similarly unaware his fruit had been irradiated.

Mr Needham said Government approval to import the fruit had not been granted until it was too late to consult growers, but he undertook to do so next season.

Mrs Norman said she would find out how the mangoes got to New Zealand.

Friends of the Earth spokesman Bob Tait, who campaigned against Steretech attempts to build a food irradiation plant here, wondered whether high doses of radiation from the isotope cobalt 60 may have chemically altered the dimethoate already in the fruit.

He wondered if the blemishes were caused by a pathogen too small to have been damaged by radiation, or by some secondary infection which would have lost its natural immunity because of sterilisation.

Food Safety Authority spokeswoman Sandra Daly said hundreds of reports over 15 years had shown irradiation to be safe.