Spice Treatments Irradiation vs. ETO/PPO
How is everyone treating their spices these days? Is irradiation still being commonly used or is everyone moving more towards the ETO/PPO? I have inherited a strange micro program here at my company that I would love to update and it is more cost effective to buy ETO/PPO treated spices then irradiated. However, I have the veterans of the company saying that we can only buy irradiated spices due to micro requirements and contamination issues they have seen in the past. I feel like the industry has moved away from irradiation since everyone wants organic and clean label so why should we continue to hold onto it. And more of our customers have been requesting organic items which I know cannot be irradiated. But we have not accepted any of that business because we don't want to change how we are treating the spices.
From what I understand ETO/PPO treatment methods are NOT organic approved. Steam heating is an organic approved option.
I've never understand consumer, and other persons, fear of irradiation of foodstuffs. It is tried and true, but has an optic that isn't great because when it was implemented in a variety of foods the method wasn't really communicated very well to the public. Too bad...
HPP is probably another way to go, but not sure if that has been validated for spices.
ryan is correct. no ppo or epe for organic. steam is what is mostly available for organic as I recall. I think someone has a proprietary CO process.
my wife use to purchase orgnanic spices. i told her to stop it. i dont think she listened. you are correct there is some business opportunity if you can do it safely.
(i use to work for a spice company - they are not "clean")