Results showed that pasteurization hardly affected the health related properties of tomato puree. Only
the formation of cis-lycopene during intense thermal pasteurization was observed.
Sterilization processes on the other hand had a significant effect on the health related properties. A
significant decrease in total lycopene concentration was found after the sterilization processes. Next to
degradation, significant isomerization was also observed: all-trans-lycopene was mainly converted to
9-cis- and 13-cis-lycopene. High pressure sterilization limited the overall lycopene isomerization, when
compared to the equivalent thermal sterilization processes. The formation of 5-cis-lycopene on the other
hand seemed to be favoured by high pressure. The in vitro lycopene bioaccessibility of high pressure
homogenized tomato puree containing oil was decreased during subsequent thermal or high pressure
processing, whereby significant changes were observed for all the sterilization processes.