Post by: Adegbola, Bukola Suliyat – bukola@farmkonnectng.com – 08093016914

Tomato processing on a commercial-scale is a capital-intensive project. It costs more than the average Nigerian can take on alone. But with the current economic and agriculture trends, it is still one of the most lucrative businesses one could embark on.

Benefits of Tomato Processing
Processing tomato into paste has many benefits. One of the most important advantages of tomato processing is that it reduces food waste. You can store processed tomato for a long time without fear of damage.
Setting up a tomato processing factory translates to increased profit as a tomato farmer. Because you add more value to the raw tomato, you get more profit from sales for a longer time.
Tomato processing lowers the cost of tomatoes during off-season. Because we lack proper storage facilities and good road networks, tomatoes are often very abundant during some times of the year and very scarce at other times. Processing ensures availability of tomatoes round the year, reducing scarcity.
Processed tomato is easier to store and transport

Drawbacks of Tomato Processing
Yes, there are certain drawbacks to this business. Those drawbacks are also some of the most pressing challenges to this business.

Capital
No, you don’t have to be a Dangote to start tomato processing but the truth is, it is a cost-intensive venture. Many people are put off by the sheer size of what it costs to start a commercial-scale tomato processing factory.

Loss of nutrients and reduction in taste
Some of the processing and preservation methods like pasteurization and addition of chemical preservatives, coupled with all the heating, can cause a reduction of nutrients in processed tomato. It doesn’t help that many of the important tomato paste brands have such low quality that people get skeptical towards commercially processed tomato.
As a result, many people only use processed tomato paste when there is not enough raw tomato to cook with. This drives up the cost of raw tomatoes, defeating one of the essential goals of tomato processing in the first place.
The challenge is that you face an uphill task to convince people about the quality of your product. But once they are convinced, you are set to fly.

How to process tomato to paste
The following is a step-by-step guide to processing tomato to paste. This process is not definitive but should give you a general idea of what is required.

Selection and Sorting
The first step is to select and sort the right type of raw tomatoes for processing. Selection and sorting ensures that you use only fresh and healthy tomatoes for processing. Make sure you select only ripe, mould-free and high quality tomatoes of the right species. This will increase the overall quality output of your tomato paste.

Weighing
Weighing is important to decide the nutritional value of the processed tomato. This information will be very crucial during fortification and addition of preservatives. It will also make sure that all the batches of processed tomatoes have uniform nutritional values.
Washing
Wash in clean water to clean out dirt before processing.

Blanching
Blanching is also known as pre-processing treatment. It helps remove the skin, seeds and offensive odor from the tomatoes before processing. Put the tomatoes in boiling water for 5-7 minutes until the skin easily peels off. Peeling off the skin is important because the skin toughens during heating.

Blending
This is also known as mashing. It is the process of converting boiled tomatoes to pulp. For commercial production, you can use a manual or motorized fruit pulping machine to ease workload and stress, and to also make the process faster.

Boiling, Sieving and Heating
Boil the blended tomatoes and sieve with a clean, white cotton sack to separate the water and the pulp. To prevent bacteria growth in your finished product, you will need to increase the acid level of the tomato paste. To do this, add lemon juice while boiling to reduce the PH level to somewhere below 4.5.
After sieving, you can now slowly heat the tomato paste, stirring it to avoid burning until you get the tomato concentrate.

Preservation and Packaging
Just like any other processing business, packaging your processed product is the key to a successful business. Be creative in you packaging style. The most common materials used in packaging tomato paste include: bottles, tins, and sachet.
The method of packaging you use would determine what preservation techniques are necessary to increase the shelf-life of the tomato paste. For sachet and small can packaging (which can be opened and used at once), chemical preservatives may not be necessary.
For bottle packaging, you can use pasteurization technique to preserve your product.
Consult a nutritionist to determine the right method of preservation for whatever packaging you choose.

Branding and Marketing
At this point, what remains is to brand and market your product. For a small-scale business, you can spread the word about your product and supply to local restaurants and households.
The market for processed tomato is equally large, beyond just Nigeria. Processed tomato is in hot demand in the international market and you can make quite a fortune from exportation.
Use every means necessary to publicize your product: magazines, newspaper, television and radio adverts, posters, handbills-whatever you budget can afford. A well-publicized business has a higher chance of succeeding.

Source: www.nextnaijaentrepreneur.com/tomato-processing/

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This is somebody's article. This is my post. You copied it without permission to promote your own business.

You know so much about farming, you want people to trust you and visit your blog or call you but you can't sit down for 30 minutes to write your own post, or accord me the courtesy of getting my permission before you use my article to promote yourself?

@delivite I'm not practicing plagiarism here, sorry for not getting your permission before posting this but please kindly recheck the post, I included the source which is www.nextnaijaentrepreneur.com/tomato-processing/. Thanks