Industrial Tomato Processing waste: a rich source of natural bioactive compounds

01 · The Opportunity

The cultivation and processing of tomatoes is the largest agricultural business in Southern European countries. Every year millions of tons of tomatoes are used and large amounts of tomato by-products are treated as low-value industrial waste. The common practice is to use them as animal feed or as low cost natural fertilizer.

However, being a rich source of natural bioactive compounds, tomato processing by-products can be utilized to produce high value-added substances for food, cosmetics, or pharmaceutical applications. The use as animal feed and organic fertilizers can be improved dramatically by the addition of these nutrients.

02 · The Objective

The objective of this project is to create a holistic approach towards the utilization of tomato processing by-products. These by-products could be considered valuable if appropriate technical means are applied, delivering valuable bioactive compounds.

Specifically, the main deliverables of the project are:

1

To create appropriate technical means for the extraction of the selected bioactive compounds from tomato processing by-products, in terms of efficiency and economic impact.

2

To integrate solutions for the exploitation of every generated waste flow stream of tomato processing by-products.

3

To design economically sustainable production of high value-added products and compounds.

4

To support environmental sustainability through the reduction of potential contaminant charge and the usage of green chemistry principles for the extraction of the selected bioactive compounds.

03 · Technical approach

The proposed project methodology can be analyzed in three basic pilars:

However, being a rich source of natural bioactive compounds, tomato processing by-products can be utilized to produce high value-added substances for food, cosmetics, or pharmaceutical applications. The use as animal feed and organic fertilizers can be improved dramatically by the addition of these nutrients.

1

Extraction of targeted bioactive phytochemicals using green extraction techniques, isolation and purification of each component

The possible uses could be:

  1. Optimization of current food products with added value new products in terms of higher consistency, higher color intensity, extended self-life, etc.
  2. Production of functional food formulation, food additives (such as colorants, preservatives, etc) and food supplements.
  3. Formulation of nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetically reach new products.
2

Extraction of oil from seeds applying extraction procedures for the production of new high–added food products such as tomato seed oil.

3

The residues of the aforementioned processes, may be used to produce increased nutritional value animal feed, due to the increased amount of proteins through extrusion process, and also organic fertilizers.

04 · Outcome

The expected impact of the successful project implementation of the project will be economic, environmental, along with the health benefits for the consumers. In specific the expected impacts summarize as follows:

1

Economic renewal for the regions of Western Greece and Romania as well as in national level, empower of the European manufacturing sector (SMEs), by increasing the competitiveness of the companies, both on national and international market, based on a common development strategy.

2

Εnvironmental impact through:

  1. Τhe reduction of contaminant charge.
  2. Τhe use of environmentally safe technologies for the extraction of the selected bioactive compounds.
  3. Τhe analysis of the contribution of the life cycle stages to the overall environmental load of the applied processes and products in order to examine the environmental performance, identify the environmental problems and optimize the processes in order to minimize the environmental impact at a reasonable cost.
3

Health benefits for consumers, derived from the high added value products with physical bio-active compounds.