Valorization of the tomato pomace to obtain lycopene, carbohydrates-rich fraction and oil by applying a hydrolytic enzyme-based approach

Tomato pomace (TP) was of interest as feedstock to extract the lycopene (lyc). This work aimed to design a process based on the use of enzymes to increase lyc extraction and at the same time to obtain additional products following a cascade approach. The pre-treatment with a mix of pectinase and cellulase doubled the lyc extraction recovery concerning the standard extraction. After the separation from the peel, the oil extract from the seeds was similar to edible oils but richer in bioactives. Indeed, the water solution (WP) in which the enzymes hydrolyzed the cell wall of the peel was significantly enriched on mono/oligosaccharides of industrial interest. The proposed approach gave more high value-added products and potential economic revenue from TP of the full scale tomato cannery industry of North Italy with respect to the current destination of the anaerobic digestion sector.