Abstract
Tomato is widely consumed in the world and its concentrated paste represents the main product from industrial tomato cultivars. One of the industry's biggest challenges is to produce in a sustainable and effective chain to simultaneously fulfill the cost reduction and quality improvement demands. This study aimed to show the loss of tomato paste quality attributes along its industrial processing chain, focusing on three parameters: (1) ascorbic acid content; (2) color and (3) consistency. Samples of tomato paste (29 °Brix) were subjected to thermal treatment at 60, 70 and 80°C, cooled down and analyzed for the mentioned attributes by kinetic parameters. Both ascorbic acid (z = 62.8°C, R2 = 0.9499) and instrumental color (z = 19.0°C, R2 = 0.9924 for a*/b*, and z = 16.3°C, R2 = 0.9897 for TPS) parameters degradation were well described by first-order kinetic models. Consistency attributes were not affected by the thermal treatment temperature. The temperature effect at each stage of processing allowed identifying the sterilization and storage steps as responsible for the greater degradation of color and ascorbic acid, respectively. The industry must control sterilization and increase sun protection in the offseason to preserve color and ascorbic acid, ensure lower losses of sensorial quality without reducing its productive flexibility, always prioritizing food safety. Key words: Color, storage, shelf life, vitamin C, consistency.
Highlights
Tomatoes are widely consumed in the world and as a fruit of limited durability and short agricultural season, much of the tomato produced for industrial purposes is transformed into concentrated pulp, which is reconstituted throughout the year, mainly during the off-season (Ochida et al, 2019)
The physical-chemical characterization of the aseptic pulp used in the kinetic study showed 67.35±0.23% wet basis moisture, 29.64±0.10 °Brix; pH of 4.31±0.01; 2.11±0.06% citric acid; and 75.3±0.9 mg of ascorbic acid (AA)/100 g
Kinetics of ascorbic acid (AA) degradation The data obtained from the degradation of AA in the
Summary
Tomatoes are widely consumed in the world and as a fruit of limited durability and short agricultural season, much of the tomato produced for industrial purposes is transformed into concentrated pulp, which is reconstituted throughout the year, mainly during the off-season (Ochida et al, 2019). The quality of the processed tomato product is dependent upon processing conditions (Xu et al, 2018). The essential quality parameters for the classification and marketing of processed tomato products are color and consistency. The desired color pattern, both in fresh and concentrated tomatoes products, is a red-intense and uniform pulp, by the presence of carotenoids, which lycopene represents about 80%. The color maintenance of tomato products depends directly on the control of process factors that trigger oxidation or thermal isomerization of carotenoids. Throughout the processing chain of concentrated pulp, the presence of oxygen must be limited, making heating the main cause of color changes (Qiu et al, 2019; Motamedzadegan and Tabarestani, 2011; Shi and Maguer, 2000; Barreiro et al, 1997). Throughout the processing chain of concentrated pulp, the presence of oxygen must be limited, making heating the main cause of color changes (Qiu et al, 2019; Motamedzadegan and Tabarestani, 2011; Shi and Maguer, 2000; Barreiro et al, 1997). Remini et al (2015) showed the effect of storage temperature and deaeration was the most influent factors on kinetics degradation of color and ascorbic acid in pasteurized blood orange juice
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