b s t r a c t. Processing tomato production represents an
important part of the total production of processed vegetables in the
world. The quality characteristics of processing tomato, important
for the food industry, are soluble solids content and antioxidant
content (such as lycopene and polyphenols) of the fruit. Analytical
quantification of these components is destructive, time and labour
consuming. That is why researchers try to develop a non-destructive
and rapid method to assess those quality parameters. The present
study reports the suitability of a portable handheld visible
near infrared spectrometer to predict soluble solids, lycopene
and polyphenol content of tomato fruit puree. Spectral ranges of
500-1000 nm were directly acquired on fruit puree of five different
tomato varieties using a FieldSpec HandHeld 2™ Portable
Spectroradiometer. Immediately after spectral measurement, each
fruit sample was analysed to determine soluble solids, lycopene
and polyphenol content. Partial least square regressions were carried
out to create models of prediction between spectral data and
the values obtained from the analytical results. The accuracy of
the predictions was analysed according to the coefficient of determination
value (R2), the root mean square error of calibration/
cross-validation.