DEVELOPMENT OF "TRADITIONAL" TOMATO PRODUCTS IN INNOVATIVE PACKAGING FOR A MARKET UPGRADE AND POSSIBILITY OF USING INDUSTRIAL TOMATO WASTE (SEEDS AND SKINS) FOR SEED OIL PRODUCTION AS FUEL AND/OR COSMETIC APPLICATIONS AND FUNCTIONAL SUBSTANCES EXTRACTION

Abstract

Notwithstanding market consumers and demands are deeply changed in the direction of higher service contents, tomato products have maintained their commercial aspects unchanged. The sector needs a product upgrading as already seen in other commercial segments such as, for example, fruit juices or dairy products industries where new food proposals are more coherent with the new market requests (new lifestyles, more service content and environmentally friendly). The current market standardization of traditional tomato products (cherry and sun dried tomatoes) since their birth packed in cans or in glass jars doesn’t allow anymore their discrimination and competition with international companies more interested in new concepts, such as wellness, convenience and new lifestyles much more “on the go”. There is a great interest towards products, which remind consumer’s concepts like health and naturalness. Among these, traditional tomato products represent a trendy product in their several industrial forms (natural, peeled, puree, sun dried in oil). The development of the whole industrial chain seems therefore necessary turn out to be moreover realistic on larger markets, as happened in the recent past years for similar products. The goal of this research is to update some critical aspects of industrial tomato chain: either consumer and technological oriented.