Abstract
Recently, the consumption of commercial kimchi in Korea has increased over 30% and continues to grow rapidly. Similarly, over 50% of Japanese pickles(Tsukemono) have changed to kimchi and most of them are commerical. The purpose of this research is to cmopare and contrast Korean commerical kimchi to Japanese commerical kimchi. Furthermore, it is to provide valuable information to the consumers and suppliers as well as to improve the quality of commercial kimchi. Five different kinds of materials were used; (A) and (B) kimchi that were made and sold in Korea, (C) and (D) kimchi that were made and sold in Japan, and (E) kimchi made in Korea, but sold in Japan. The kimchi purchased on April 20th, 2002 and sensory evaluation, respectively, and they were preserved at $5^{\circ}C$. For the quality index, the followings contents were measured; moisture, ash, protein, crude lipid, mineral and capsaicin. In addition, pH, acidity and sensory evaluation for kimchi stored at $5^{\circ}C$ were measured for four weeks.