Recent Advances in Recovery of Lycopene from Tomato Waste: A Potent Antioxidant with Endless Benefits

Abstract

Growing attention to environmental protection leads food industries to adopt a model of “circular economy” applying safe and sustainable technologies to recover, recycle and valorize by-products. Therefore, by-products become raw material for other industries. Tomato processing industry produces significant amounts of by-products, consisting of skins and seeds. Tomato skin is very rich in lycopene, and from its seeds, high nutritional oil can be extracted. Alternative use of the two fractions not only could cut disposal costs but also allow one to extract bioactive compounds and an oil with a high nutritional value. This review focused on the recent advance in extraction of lycopene, whose beneficial effects on health are widely recognized.

By-Products Revalorization with Non-Thermal Treatments to Enhance Phytochemical Compounds of Fruit and Vegetables Derived Products: A Review

“…Pulses Electric Fields (PEF) consist of subjecting the selected material to the intermittent application (<300 Hz) of electric fields at moderate-high intensity (0.1–20 kV/cm) and short duration (µs to ms) [ 54 ]. The main characteristic is the application of electric field pulsing on plant matrices that induces electro permeabilization (formation of located pores in cell membranes of cells), and the effect mainly depends on medium composition (conductivity) [ 55 ]. PEF technology has been defined as technology which requires fewer resources to produce nutritional with optimal sensory characteristics and longer shelf lives of products such as hummus, smoothies and juices [ 56 ].…”

“…Ultrasonication is an emerging non-thermal and green technology in the food sector, although it has been previously established in other sectors such as pharmacological. The fundamentals are based on the mechanical impact of the ultrasound waves, allowing deeper penetration of the solvent into the matrix (“sponge effect”) [ 55 ]. Ultrasonication can be used with different doses (frequencies and time), which are classified as: (i) low-frequency (20 kHz–100 kHz); (ii) medium-frequency (100 kHz–1 MHz); and high-frequency ultrasonication (1 MHz–100 MHz) [ 75 , 76 ].…”

A Quantitative and Qualitative Study of Food Loss in Glasshouse-Grown Tomatoes

“…Consumer response to the upcycled food trend has been positive, with 53% of Italian millennials willing to buy upcycled food items, and 69% believe that the addition of upcycled ingredients has positive environmental benefits [39]. Notably, tomatoes have been recognized as a low-cost source of antioxidants such as carotenoids, which can be added to functional foods [40][41][42].…”

Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Carotenoids from Carrot Pomace and Their Optimization through Response Surface Methodology

“…The highest extraction yield was obtained in run 2 (5.41 µg/g) and the lowest extraction yield was obtained in run 12 (3.36 µg/g). The final second-order polynomial equation obtained by neglecting the non-significant terms is given below: Y 3 = 1.2015 + 0.0294A + 0.0279B + 0.0128C − 0.0003AC − 0.0006A 2 − 0.0004B 2 − 0.0001C 2 (6) The linear, interaction, and quadratic effects of each independent variable on lutein contents are shown in Table 4. The results showed that all the linear variables (A, B, C) and one quadratic variable (B 2 ) were significant at p < 0.0001, whereas one interaction variable (AC) and one quadratic variable (C 2 ) were significant at p < 0.01, while one quadratic variable (A 2 ) was significant at p < 0.001.…”

“…After processing vegetables in the food industry, a large quantity of waste is produced. According to one survey, only in Europe, approximately 27.94 million tons of food wastes are produced every year from the food processing industry [6]. The carrot pomace is also a by-product obtained after carrot juice processing.…”