Dry fermented sausages enriched with lycopene from tomato peel

Tomato industries yield a high amount of by-products mainly tomato peel and seeds. Since tomato peel is rich in lycopene, the direct addition of peel to food products could be a way to use this by-product to obtain a new products enriched in lycopene. This work describes experiments performed to develop dry fermented sausages (salchichón) containing this carotene. 0%, 0.6%, 0.9% and 1.2% (w/w) of dry tomato peel was added to the meat mixture used in sausage manufacture. A slight losts of lycopene was detected after 21 days ripening, however, levels remained between 0.26 and 0.58 mg of lycopene/100 g of sausage. The sensory and textural properties and overall acceptability of all sausages were good, indicating that tomato peel could be added to dry fermented sausages to produce a meat product enriched in lycopene.