A rapid spectrophotometric method for analyzing lycopene content in tomato and tomato products

Abstract Lycopene is a carotenoid that has antioxidant properties and imparts the red pigment in some fruits and vegetables. Tomato ( Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the predominant lycopene sources in a typical North American diet. Current methods to assay lycopene content in fruit are time consuming, expensive, and use hazardous organic solvents. Here, we report a method by which light absorbance measured with a scanning xenon flash colorimeter/spectrophotometer is used to quantify lycopene content in pureed translucent fruit samples. We evaluated 13 tomatoes (four different cultivars) and 38 tomato products. Our puree absorbance method (PAM) had linear correlation coefficients with lycopene content determined by hexane extraction/spectrophotometry of R 2 =0.97 for fresh tomato, and 0.88 for tomato products. These linear correlations between methods show that this rapid method will likely work for quantitating lycopene content in purees of fresh tomatoes and some prepared foods. Since pureeing is the only processing required and no chemicals are needed, the method is rapid, inexpensive and requires no hazardous chemicals. Since lycopene has health benefits and food colorant potential, lycopene content in fruits is of interest to the food industry. This simple method for measuring lycopene content in a wide variety of foods and food products promises widespread use for lycopene quantitation.