Fully ripened red colored tomatoes of ‘Vijeta’ variety were procured
from farmers of Kolhapur district, Maharashtra, India.
These were washed, crushed and used for the lycopene extraction.
Tomato peels were obtained by blanching fully ripened
tomatoes, in hot water at 80 ◦C for 5min. The peels thus
obtained were dried in hot air oven at 50 ◦C to 10% moisture
content. These were ground in a grinder and were stored in
air tight HDPE containers until further use.