This invention relates to a tomato fruit with significantly increased firmness due to the presence of at least one genetic element (or quantitative trait loci; QTLs) in the cultivated plant producing said tomato fruit, compared to fruit from a control tomato plant which does not have said genetic element(s). A cultivated tomato plant producing tomato fruit with significantly increased fruit firmness and a method for detecting QTLs linked to significantly increased fruit firmness are also provided.

The invention provides seed and plants of tomato line CHI-XF15-9032. The invention thus relates to the plants, seeds, and tissue cultures of tomato line CHI-XF15-9032 and to methods for producing a tomato plant produced by crossing such plants with themselves or with another tomato plant, such as a plant of another genotype. The invention further relates to seeds and plants produced by such crossing. The invention further relates to parts of such plants, including the fruit and gametes of such plants.

The present invention is directed towards a process for the storage of unblended tomato pomace or tomato peels containing lycopene, comprising the following steps: a) providing tomato pomace and/or tomato peels, whereby the amount of lycopene in the tomato pomace or in the tomato peels is at least 50 ppm by weight, preferably at least 100 ppm by weight, more preferably at least 200 ppm by weight, based on the total fresh weight of the tomato pomace and tomato peels; b) pressing the tomato pomace and/or tomato peels to reduce its water content, preferably to an amount in the range of from 55 to 80 weight-%, preferably to an amount in the range of from 55 to 75 weight-%, more preferably in an amount in the range of from 55 to 65 weight-%, most preferably in an amount in the range of from 50 to 65 weight-%, based on the total weight of the tomato pomace and tomato peels, respectively; c) silage storing the unblended tomato pomace and/or tomato peels, preferably without any additive, for a period of at least 120 days, preferably for a period of at least 180 days, more preferably for a period of at least 270 days, even more preferably for a period of at least 365 days, most preferably for a period of at least 394 days. Advantageously the loss of lycopene during storage for several months is ≤5 weight-%, based on the total amount of lycopene. This is surprising since lycopene is known to be one of the least stable and most oxygen-sensitive carotenoids, and since neither cooling nor addition of preservative of the stored tomato pomace and tomato peels, is necessary.

The present invention relates to a method of preparing water-soluble lycopene derived from tomato and the water-soluble lycopene derived from tomato prepared by the method. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a method of preparing lycopene having various functionalities from tomato at a high yield and the lycopene prepared by the method. More specifically, the method of preparing water-soluble lycopene derived from tomato comprises: a tomato powder pretreatment step which is performed by a method of swelling tomato powder dispersed in water after stirring the tomato powder in water and dispersing the same in water; an alkali hydrolysis step which is performed by a method of adding an alkali to the pretreated tomato powder, incubating the alkali-added pretreated tomato powder, filtering an incubated material to remove residues from the incubated material, and obtaining a filtrate; and a salting out crystallization step which is performed by a method of obtaining suspended material produced by a reaction after adding an organic acid to the filtrate, incubating the organic acid-added filtrate, and performing a process of filtering an incubated material. COPYRIGHT KIPO 2019

The present invention relates to a savoury, particulate composition having a water content of not more than 15 wt.% and comprising: a) 5-99 wt.%, by weight of the composition, tomato powder, wherein at least 70 wt.% of said tomato powder has a mesh size of less than 850 µm, b) 0.5-5 wt.%, by weight of the tomato powder, calcium carbonate powder, said calcium carbonate powder having a volume median grain diameter (D50) of 0.1-50 µm.