The tomato is one of the most widely cultivated vegetable crops
and is used globally for human nutrition. Millions of tons of tomatoes
are processed yearly to produce products such as ketchup and
sauce, resulting in large amounts of tomato peel, pulp, and seed as
industrial waste, an amount almost equivalent to 40% of the raw
material. Concentrations of lycopene in tomato vary from 30 to
200 mg/kg in fresh fruit and from 430 to 2950 mg/kg on a dry basis
(Vasapollo et al., 2004). Lycopene represents more than 85% of the
total carotenoids; tomato peel contains about five times more lycopene
than tomato pulp (Lazos and Kalathenos, 1988; Sharma and
Le Maguer, 1996).