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Korea Food Research Institute(KFRI), nonprofitable research institute, was established in 1988 in order to
develop food technologies and improve farmers' income by adding values to agricultrual products. With the world agricultural trade recently liberalized, food technology innovation becomes more important to enhance the international competitiveness of domestic agriculture and food industry. To achieve this, the Institute performs principal research and other related activities in the areas of processing agricultural products into high value-added products, improving efficiency of marketing agricultural products and processed foods, providing technical informations for farmers to participate in processing industry, and etc. Especially, the Institute gives efforts to commercializing Korean traditional Foods such as kimchi. Kimchi is a traditional fermented vegetable food in Korea, which has been traditionally served as a "must" at almost every meal along with cooked rice and other dishes. Kimchi is characterized with its palatability giving sour, sweet and carbonated taste and is very different from sauerkraut in the West. Despite the uniqueness of every kimchi, the basic taste of kimchi is derived from salt, lactic acid fermentation of vegetables, several spices (including hot red pepper and garlic) and pickled fish or fresh seafoods. Now, kimchi is recognized as a natural health food. Kimchi has high contents of dietary fiber and vitamins and low content of fat. Several organic acids and viable lactic acid bacteria are found to have good effects on human intestinal microflora. Also, the lactic acid bacteria have anticancer and immunostimulation effect. Since the 1970s, kimchi production has increased significantly for commercial purposes and the number of kimchi plants has increased to meet the demands for domestic consumption and export, but most of the plants are on small scales. Kimchi has been one of the official foods in the several international events such as '92 Barcelona and '96 Atlanta Olympic Games since '88 Seoul Olympic Games. Also, the Codex standardization is being elaborated for the increased international trade of kimchi. In the future, more and more commercial kimchi products will be consumed, and international trade of kimchi will be accelerated by more frequent cultural exchange between Korea and other countries in the world.
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