- Winter - 1997 "Update" Newsletter Article -

Tomato chips poised for marketplace comeback
From CATI Publication #970101
Copyright © 1997. All rights reserved.

image Tomato lovers have been dreaming about it for years. Now perhaps it will become a reality - the ultimate vegetable snack - the tomato chip.

After a near 10-year hiatus in development efforts at Fresno State, a team of students and faculty in the Department of Enology, Food Science and Nutrition has developed a new formula and processing method that may help to make the tomato chip a commercial reality.

"Sensory panels have given it an extremely positive response," said professor Joanne Caid, current chair of the Enology, Food Science and Nutrition Department and director of the project. Caid led research efforts in the late 1980s to develop a tomato chip, and while initial taste tests were favorable, the processing method used was too time consuming to attract the eye of industry, she said.

With renewed funding from the California Tomato Research Institute this past year, Caid led a group of students in new approaches to processing.

Results have been good. "We have developed a formulation process that is quick and stable," Caid said. "Now we are looking for a company we might be able to work with to produce the product commercially."

The recipe uses processed tomatoes that are mixed into a starch-based slurry, cooked, sliced, and then fried. The texture of the finished product is like a corn chip. And the flavor is tomato, with a "twang," depending on what spices are added to the mix, Caid said.

The project was conducted with additional support from the Center for Food Science and Nutrition Research (CFSNR), one of the centers operating under the California Agricultural Technology Institute (CATI).

For more information on the tomato chip or CFSNR research, contact the center at (559) 278-5924, or visit the center's World Wide Web site at http://cati.csufresno.edu/cfsnr/.

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CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE - CATI
College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology
California State University, Fresno