Radura is the international logo used to indicate food treated with ionising radiation. It is not what EU law requires. Directive 1999/2/EC requires the words “irradiated” or “treated with ionising radiation”, and that wording, not the symbol, is the compliance point.
Why it works this way
The directive was written around a declaration in words because words survive translation, label redesign and ingredient lists in a way a graphic does not. The requirement reaches into compound products: an irradiated ingredient has to be indicated in the ingredient list of the finished food, with no threshold below which the declaration disappears. Products sold to a processor rather than to a consumer carry the declaration on the accompanying documents.
The symbol may still appear, because it is used in other jurisdictions and some operators apply it voluntarily. That creates the trap: a buyer who reads the absence of a Radura logo as evidence that a lot was untreated is reading the wrong thing.
The scope is narrow. Directive 1999/3/EC puts exactly one category on the Community positive list – dried aromatic herbs, spices and vegetable seasonings – at a maximum overall average absorbed dose of 10 kGy. National authorisations for other foods survive in some Member States, which is why a treatment lawful in one market is not automatically lawful in another.
What follows in practice
Require a per-lot supplier declaration on treatment status and make sure it reaches your labelling data, not just your quality file. Standardised analytical methods exist for detecting irradiated foods, so a false declaration is verifiable rather than a matter of trust.
Irradiation rules for spices in the EU sets out the framework in full.