Research: Tomato essence for increased flavor

Researchers from the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences of the University of Florida (UF/IFAS) have developed a tomato essence which could be added to tomato juice or other tomato products to increase the tomato flavor. Using volatile capture, UF/IFAS scientists obtained the essence from the tomatoes, said Paul Sarnoski, an assistant professor in the UF/IFAS food science and human nutrition department. Juices often need to be pasteurized before they are consumed, Sarnoski said. During that process, the volatiles that give a juice flavor are lost because of the thermal processing required for pasteurization. That is part of the reason tomato juice does not quite taste like a fresh tomato. “Many individuals complain that tomato juice doesn’t resemble typical, fresh, tomato flavor,” Sarnoski said. “Perhaps, by adding an essence, we could make the juice more closely resemble fresh tomato flavor.” The citrus industry already uses this technique, but the tomato industry does not use “tomato essence” to produce tomato juice, said Sarnoski, lead author of the new study.
 
In the study, researchers used Garden Gem tomatoes – a UF/IFAS-bred variety – as the premium flavor tomato. They used Roma tomato as the control flavor. They wanted to test whether Garden Gem retained more of its flavor after pasteurization. The Garden Gem did, and was found as a suitable variety for essence production because of a high content of flavor volatiles, thus leading scientists to believe this system will provide better flavor when they test it on consumers. Of the four essence fractions produced, Fractions 1 and 2 were most complementary to the undesirable flavor changes encountered during thermal processing. Fraction 1 was characterized as a “green tomato note”, with substantially higher amounts of 2-isobutylthiazole, α-citral, hexanal, 3-hexen-1-ol, and 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one; Fraction 2 was described as a “fruity tomato note” with relatively percentage change of compounds; and Fractions 3 and 4 were described as “cooked tomato note” and “faint tomato note”, respectively. 
 
Fruit juices, including tomato juice, are big business in the U.S. In fact, juices may be the driving force behind rising beverage sales in the United States, Sarnoski said. Beverage sales are expected to continue to increase from $131 billion in 2013 to an estimated $164 billion by 2018, according to 2015 statistics from the Beverage Marketing Corporation. Tomato-related processed products saw a 14 percent increase in sales in 2015 alone.
 
The study is published in the journal Food Chemistry: ”Development and characterization of a high quality plum tomato essence”)
 
(Source: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences)