Irradiation of ground beef was given the green light by the federal government last February, and the first products appeared last May in stores in the Midwest. How many carry the patties today is unclear. Wil Williams, a spokesman for Titan, which owns the SureBeam Corporation, the company that irradiates most of the ground beef sold in this country, put the number at approximately 2,000 in 18 states. But several other industry experts said the figures were 1,500 stores in 14 states. With the exception of Florida, which has an irradiation plant, most irradiated beef is found in the Midwest, near the SureBeam plant in Sioux City, Iowa.
Total sales are even harder to determine.
We still have a little perception problem, and that has to do with the labeling issue. When you pick up a product and see a statement that it is treated by irradiation and you see a radura, to some people that means a little radioactivity. Omaha Steaks' Web site does have information about irradiation, but it is called electronic pasteurization, and you would find it only if you knew what to look for. But Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Consumer Federation of America's Food Policy Institute, objected to what she said was the industry's attempt to hide irradiation behind other words. Consumer research, she said, shows that shoppers want the term irradiation to appear on treated products.