Various functional foods, marketing health and functional effects, have been distributed in the market. These products, being in forms of foods, tablets, and capsules, are likely to be mistaken as drugs. In addition,non-experts may sell these as foods, or use these for therapy. Efforts for creating health food regulations or building regulatory system for improving the current status of functional foods have been made, but these have not been communicated to consumers yet. As a result, problems of circulating functional foods for therapy or adding illegal medical to such products have persisted, which has become worse by internet media. The cause of this problem can be categorized into (1) product itself and (2) its use, but in either case, one possible cause is lack of communications with consumers. Potential problems that can be caused by functional foods include illegal substances, hazardous substances,allergic reactions, considerations when administered to patients, drug interactions, ingredients with purity or concentrations too low to be detected, products with metabolic activations, health risks from over- or under-dose of vitamin and minerals, and products with alkaloids. (Journal of Health Science, 56, Supplement (2010)). The reason why side effects related to functional foods have been increasing is that under-qualified functional food companies are exaggerating the functionality for marketing purposes. KFDA has been informing consumers, through its web pages, to address the above mentioned issues related to functional foods, but there still is room for improvement, to promote proper use of functional foods and avoid drug interactions. Specifically, to address these issues, institutionalizing to collect information on approved products and their side effects, settling reevaluation systems, and standardizing preclinical tests and clinical tests are becoming urgent. Also to provide crucial information, unified database systems,seamlessly aggregating heterogeneous data in different domains, with user interfaces enabling effective one-stop search, are crucial.

This survey was conducted to monitor the food additives, heavy metals, and microbial contamination of the dried marine products like squids, pollacks, and shrimps, including jerked beef. They were purchased from supermarkets and traditional markets in Gwangju from February to December 2009. A total of 101 samples were tested. Sorbic acid, one of the additives, was detected in 29 samples of them (32.2%) and the contents were from 21.4to 244.2 mg/kg. Among heavy metals, lead was detected, ranging from 0.000 to 0.594 mg/kg and cadmium, from 0.000 to 0.679 mg/kg and mercury, from 0.001 to 0.947 mg/kg. Sodium was detected, ranging from 0.6 to 1.7%. Aerobic bacteria were detected from 81 samples (80.2%), coliform bacteria, from 10 samples (9.9%) and Bacillus cereus,causing food poisoning, was isolated from 3 samples (3.0%).

Total aflatoxin (B₁+ B₂+ G₁+ G₂) maximum levels of 15 μg/kg (B₁= 10 μg/kg) were set for grain,beans, peanut, nuts & their processed food (grinding, cutting etc.), processed cereal product & processed bean product,confectionaries (peanut or nut-containing food), soybean paste, red pepper paste, dried red pepper, processed corn products for popcorn and steamed rice. The maximum levels for aflatoxin M₁ are 0.5 μg/kg for raw milk and milks before manufacturing processing. The patulin maximum level is 50 μg/kg in apple juice and apple juice concentrate (including concentrate to use as raw material and converted by concentration multiple). The ochratoxin A is managed at the maximum levels of 5 μg/kg in wheat, barley, rye, coffee beans and roasted coffee, 10 μg/kg in instant coffee and raisin,2 μg/kg in Grape juice, concentrated grape juice as reconstituted and wine. The fumonisins (B₁+ B₂) maximum levels are 4000 μg/kg in corn, 2000 μg/kg in corn processed food (grinding, cutting etc.) and corn powder, 1000 μg/kg in processed corn products. Standards for mycotoxins in food have been established and the mycotoxin risk in food is managed reasonably and scientifically, based on risk assessment and exposure analysis.

This study surveyed the change of housewives’ purchase behaviors by food safety incidents; the outbreak of 2008 Melamine incident in Korea as for example. 565 housewives in Gunsan were interviewed in March 2009. 52.3% of respondents were regarded as unsatisfactory for food safety management in Korea. Despite the result of scientific assessment for melamine, 74.6% of respondents were yet regarded as health-threatening substance. By the point of before, during and after Melamine-related food safety incident, we were surveyed the level of purchase for melamine-related food items as five scales, the results were 2.47 ± 0.97, 1.80 ± 0.92 and 1.62 ± 0.92, respectively (p < 0.001). After the incident happened, the purchase level was even more reduced. This study also found that there were significance difference (p < 0.05) among the respondents’ knowledge for melamine toxicity and food safety management in Korea concerning housewives’ purchase behaviors, i.e. the more accurately for melamine toxicity and higher satisfactory of consciousness of food safety, there were less change of purchase behaviors. In conclusion, the consciousness of food safety and accurate knowledge of hazards were significantly affected for the change of housewives’purchase behaviors by food safety incidents. Therefore, it can be suggested that the need for more scientific risk communication strategies with consumer.

In modern diet relying heavily on processed food, it is difficult to live without food additives, added to food regardless of whether consumers want or not. This poses the following questions: Are food additives really safe? Are they toxic? Are they cancerous? Are they still good to eat? Are there any concerns on excessive intake and interactions? Is toxicity testing adequate? Is ADI evaluation being set up properly? In this article, I discuss a desirable management strategy for food additives, by addressing these questions and concerns and analyzing and reviewing current status of food additive management.

This study was carried out to evaluate the consumer recognition with regard to the safety management for imported foods. In order to evaluate the effect of the prgram on consumer education, the program was practiced for 89 female college students in Seoul, Korea. The participants were given an instruction with materials on imported food safety, including the safety management of imported foods and their distribution. The results showed that the participants achieved a greater understanding of imported foods. In particular, they had firmly grasped the importance of expiration date in selecting imported foods. Before the instruction, 50.6% of total participants blamed the Korean government for the problems arising from imported foods; only 18.0% placed the blame on individuals or businesses importing from foreign countries. After the instruction, 39.3% had blamed the individuals or businesses importing from foreign countries. Furthermore, 36.0% had disapproved of the foods that are imported from China before the instruction, while 32.6% found objectionable the views on the illegally distributed foods; 29.2% criticized the junk foods that target children (after the instruction). In addition, the level of participant satisfaction via-a-vis imported foods safety supervision had improved from 2.76 ± 1.59(before the instruction) to 3.37 ± 1.58(after the instruction). The results indicate that consumers are concerned with the imported foods that contain adulterated or forbidden substances and the illegally distributed foods from foreign countries. Thus, consistent and informative educational programs on imported food safety could help consumers in choosing safer products, resulting in an improvement in the consumer confidence with respect to imported foods.

This study was conducted the analysis of food safety incidents between January 1998 and October 2008 using media reports. Total number of food safety incident was 569 through the study period. The average of food safety incident per year and month was 51.7and 4.9, respectively. The top 10 food types involved in the lists of food safety incidents were as follows; marine products, meat and meat products, confectionaries, beverages, special nutritional food, teas, noodles, soy and bean paste sauces, and milk and milk products etc. The top 10 single foods also were as follows; ready-to eats, meat, confectionary, health support foods, steeping tea, infant formula, meat products, ginseng products, foods for body weight control etc. Of the total 569 incidents, 247 (43.4%) were related with chemical hazards involving pesticide, food additives etc, biological hazards were 126 (22.1%), and physical hazards were 97 (17.0%) incidents. In analysis stage in the food chain at which breakdown in food safety occurred, primary production were the most common stage with 364 (64%) incidents, and incidents at the manufacture handling and distribution stages were with 151 (26.5%), and 44 (7.7%), respectively. The results of this study can be used as a better data for risk analysis or food safety strategies.

This survey was conducted to monitor the safety of children snacks circulated in a stationary store or small shop around the elementary school from March to October, 2008, in Gwangju. A total of 309 samples was tested. Of these samples, 254 were confectioneries, 41 were ready-to-eat foods like kimbap, 4 were beverages and 10 were the others like fishery products. 259 were domestic products and 50 were imported. By the origin of imported samples, 17 were from china, 6 from U.S.A., 5 from india and etc. We found out that in acid value, 2 cases of fried snacks(3.9 and 4.4) proved to exceed regulatory guidance(2.0). And among ready-to-eat foods, two kimbap had Staphylococcus aureus, and one had Escherichia coli, which microorganism could cause food poisoning.

Consumers are very concerned about food safety as the risk with food increased. This study was conducted to evaluate the perceptions and practices of consumers on food safety in order to collect some information for the development of consumer education program. Total 500 consumers were asked to answer for survey constituted with 6 questions of generic information, 4 of food safety perceptions and 8 of food safety practices from June to July, 2006. More than half of respondents (51.8%) were unsatisfied with the food safety management of government while the individual practices on food safety were satisfactory. Especially, most respondents (98.7%) checked the expiration date of food when they purchased and 97% of respondents were washed hands before food preparation. The higher food safety perception, the better food safety practices of consumers. These results suggest that the systematic and continuous educations on food safety hazards and the principles of sanitation management are necessary for safe food handling and perception on food safety.