The eye-catching colors of tomatoes act as clues to their taste and quality. Image Source: Flickr user rpavich
October is National Tomato Month and to honor the occasion, wellness company Lycored set out to create a record-breaking 1000-pound tomato salad in the middle of Times Square. Featuring 132 types of tomatoes in a rainbow of hues, the salad presented the largest variety of tomatoes ever assembled in a single location. And yet, even this vast array represents only a small proportion of the ever-expanding number of tomato varieties in existence.
The diversity of tomatoes and dedication to creating new varieties speaks to the global, cross-cultural appeal of the fruit. As horticulturalist and tomato-expert Monica Ozores-Hampton says, “People have these romantic ideas about tomatoes. People always have a story about that favorite soup or pizza and they yearn for the tomato. There is not one culture that doesn’t have tomato as a centerpiece of their culture’s cuisine.”1 Given the central role tomatoes play in the dining experiences of people across the world, it is no surprise that spectrophotometric quality control is paramount to producers of both fresh and processed tomatoes.
Grading of processed tomato products relies on spectrophotometric color measurement. Image Source: Flickr user Steven Depolo
