Abstract
In Korea, the health authorities and food industry emphasize the need of sanitary food production, which in mainly resulted from the recent growing of consumer's interest in the safety of food. For the reason, development of a new alternative technology to chemicals, currently used for decontamination and disinfestation, has become and urgent task in the domestic and worldwide food industry. Furthermore, the improvement of quality and manufacturing process of processed food is a requisite for winning the competition in export fields. Irradiation technology being practically applicable in the food industry has been well established on the basis of more than 40 years of R&D work in the fields of the increasing availability of food-stuffs, sanitary food production and quarantine treatment in the food trade. The wholesomeness of irradiation foods has been officially approved in 38 countries, of which 30 countries are commercially utilizing food irradiation technology. The first commercial irradiator in Korea(18.5PBq:500k{TEX}$Ci^{60}${/TEX} Co, max. cap; 4MCi) was established at Yeoju-gur, Kyung Ki-do with the technical assistance of Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in June 1987. As of 1996, thirteen irradiated food groups (over 25 items)have been domestically approved for human consumption and an industrial irradiation facility is also available. However, the domestically approved for human consumption and an industrial irradiation facility is also available. However, the promotion of consumer acceptance to toward ir-radiated foods is considered as a confronted subject to be studied for a commercial utilization.
