The stores include the 80 store Pick'n Save chain in Wisconsin and six independently owned stores in south Florida. Store managers in both states reported that the irradiated products were discontinued due to lack of consumer interest. "We experimented with it for a short time, but there was not enough demand or consumer interest," Food Irradiation Alert! quoted Roy DeLoach, owner of DeLoach's Meat Market in Lakeland, Florida, as saying.
The newsletter also reports that the two large retailers, Wal-Mart and Publix, have backed out of agreements to purchase the irradiated ground beef patties called New Generation. The New Generation patties are produced by a Florida Company called Colorado Boxed Beef. Colorado Boxed Beef was also supplying the six stores that discontinued carrying irradiated beef products.
The fact that consumers are cautious regarding irradiated meat was further high lighted by a recent US Food and Drug Administration Survey. The survey found that over 98 percent of consumers who responded to the survey want federal labeling laws for irradiated food maintained or strengthened.
Food Irradiation Alert! also reports that its efforts to get the food irradiation industry to eliminate its deceptive use of the term cold pasteurization has had some success.
The United States Department of Agriculture's web site now cautiously calls the use of the term misleading, according to the newsletter.
In August, 2001, Public Citizen, along with the Center for Food Safety called on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to initiate a thorough investigation into companies that advertise food irradiation as "pasteurization" and irradiated food products as "pasteurized." The two groups asked the FTC to stop the practice and to penalize the companies for using false advertising.
Five out of eight US food irradiation companies that maintain web sites use the misleading term pasteurization when referring to irradiating meat, according to Food Irradiation Alert! The two organizations that called on the FTC to bring an halt to the misleading advertising contend that irradiation of red meat creates dangerous by-products in the meat.
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