Whos using irradiated beef products?
In less than three years, the availability of irradiated ground beef has expanded from a handful of stores in the Minneapolis area to about 4,000 supermarkets and hundreds of restaurants nationwide. Schwan’s, a major home-delivery food service, and Omaha Steaks, a mail-order marketer of premium beef products, were among the first to market irradiated ground beef nationwide. And in May 2002, New York-based Wegmans, which operates 64 stores in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, became the country’s first retailer to put its brand on irradiated ground beef instead of simply offering a generic product. Since then, more than two dozen retail chains have followed that lead by adding fresh irradiated ground beef to their shelves. Cargill’s Excel Division has been marketing frozen and fresh irradiated ground beef for about two years, and in September 2002, Tyson’s IBP Division introduced five different irradiated ground beef products that now are being marketed by retailers nationwide. Foo
