many cases, food deterioration is caused by oxidation of food constituents or spoilage by moulds in the presence of O2. Although O2-sensitive foods can be packaged appropriately using modi®ed atmosphere packaging (MAP) or vacuum packaging, these technologies do not always remove O2 completely. Moreover,the O2 that permeates through the packaging ®lm cannot be removed by these techniques. By use of an O2-scavenger, which absorbs the residual O2 after
packaging, quality changes of O2-sensitive foods can often be minimized. In general, existing O2-scavenging technologies utilize one or more of the following concepts:iron powder oxidation, ascorbic acid oxidation, photosensitive dye oxidation, enzymatic oxidation (e.g. glucose oxidase and alcohol oxidase), unsaturated fatty acids(e.g. oleic acid or linolenic acid), immobilized yeast on a solid material [1].The majority of currently commercially available O2-scavengers are based on the principle of iron oxidation