Prior to peeling, raw fruits were allowed to equilibrate to room temperature (23 °C) for at least 2 h, which ensured that all fruits were of the same initial temperature. For IR peeling, tomatoes were heated using double-sided IR (Fig. 2) with an optimal distance between two emitters of 90 ± 2 mm (Pan et al., 2009).To improve heating uniformity, the tomato was rotated continuously at a speed of 1 rpm by means of a motor driven turntable (Fig. 2). As a comparison, regular lye peeling conducted on a laboratory scale was used as a control. The procedures of lye peeling tomatoes were used as described byPan et al. (2009). After IR and lye peeling, the loosened skins were manually removedfor further evaluations.