**1. Introduction**

Food irradiation is a promising food safety technology that has a significant potential to control spoilage and eliminate food-borne pathogens. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has estimated that approximately 25% of all worldwide food production is lost after harvesting due to insects, microbes, and spoilage. As the market for food becomes increasingly global, food products must meet high standards of quality and quarantine in order to move across international borders. The FAO has recommended that member states need to implement irradiation technology for national phytosanitary programs. There is a trend to use food irradiation mainly due to three main factors: the increase of foodborne diseases; high food losses from contamination and spoilage; and increasing global trade in food products. The ever increasing foodborne illness outbreaks associated with fresh produce continue to prove that traditional measures are not sufficient to eliminate food borne pathogens. More effective countermeasures are clearly needed to better manage the foodborne pathogen risks posed by contaminated produce. Fresh produce industries, government regulatory agencies, and consumers all are advocating for new technologies that will eliminate or significantly reduce foodborne pathogens on fresh produce. With increasing awareness of the foodborne idleness linked to fresh produce, gamma irradiation could be applied to mitigate human pathogens in fresh fruits and vegetables. Food irradiation is a safe and effective tool and could be used with other technology to control pathogenic bacteria in fresh produce. Irradiated foods are generally nutritious, better or the same as food treated by convectional methods such as cooking, drying, and freezing. Food irradiation also has other benefits such as delay in repining and sprouting. Further more food irradiation has a significant potential to enhance produce safety and if combined with other anti-microbial treatments; this technology is promising to solve some of the current produce pathogen problems. Although irradiation is safe and has been approved in 40 countries, food irradiation continues to be a debate and slows extensive acceptance and use in the food industries. Several foodborne pathogens have been linked to fresh produce and gamma irradiation could be applied to eliminate microbes before reaching the consumer. There is an urgent need to educate consumer on the principles and benefits of this promising technology.
