14th World Tomato Congress 21st March-1st April 2022
The topic of the speech will be on the update and Innovations in the tomato processin industry.
Abstract:
The tomato processing has been developing substantially in the last decades.
From classical concentration to obtain up to sextuple concentraded tomato pastes or peeled whole tomatoes in juice, the processing plant industry developed new processes in order to innovate the processed tomato market.
The main development was done to obtain different thickness and texture of ready to use tomato pastes, depending by the blanching from cold to hot break and by the cutting process that has been modulated in order to have courser or finer flesh tomato fragments on a basis of tomato sauces.
Another innovation on plant optimization and to increase process sustainability has been regarding the aseptic packaging for both bag in box and flexible packaging. In the first case the product would be addressed to a following processing while the flexible packaged tomato sauces, even in different sizes and quality varieties, are generally addressed to the direct consumer’s market.
To obtain these relatively new products, several processing innovations have been designed, developed and introduced in the tomato processing plant panorama.
Furthermore, innovative non thermal technologies are studied. Pulsed electric fields (PEF), high pressure treatments (HPP), cold plasma treatments have been experimented to treat tomato products to obtain quality improvement, better processing yields and a reduction the energy demands.