Peeled tomatoes: production line for peeled tomatoes

Production line for peeled tomatoes

Mainly used for dishes such as meat sauces, fish soups and braised meats, but also to add flavour to pizzaiola meat or as an ingredient in focaccia fillings, peeled tomatoes have many uses in the kitchen.

The best tomatoes for making peeled tomatoes are those with an elongated shape, such as the San Marzano variety, with few seeds and a firm pulp, and selection is especially important for this product, where appearance is also part of the best possible result.

Discover the Ing .A. Rossi machines for tomato peeling

| How are peeled tomatoes produced?

A peeled tomato production line consists of a receiving area, where the raw material is handled carefully to avoid damage. The washing phase is equally important. The tomatoes pass through cleaning rollers, where jets of pressurised water remove unsuitable parts and earthy residues. Further steps, in water tanks, ensure that all other foreign bodies are removed, so that the perfectly cleaned tomatoes can be subjected to quality controls, including visual inspection and manual sorting, and quantity control.

The ingredients suitable for processing are then sent for peeling, which is done by a thermo-physical vacuum method.

Peeling for colour preservation

Proper peeling is very important as the outer section of the fruit contains most of its vitamin C and lycopene. Furthermore, since the lycopene is largely responsible for the red colour of tomatoes, improper processing of the deeper regions of the exocarp can result in a poor appearance.

During the production of whole peeled tomatoes, attention must also be paid to the preservation of colour, uniformity and look, in addition to the not insignificant issue of loss of yield, which must be minimised.

In fact, the operation often results in significant losses unless the peeler temperature, pressure and dwell time are strictly controlled. These parameters (temperature, pressure and dwell time) must be carefully monitored to ensure that the peel is removed without excess.

| The peeling system

Ing. A. Rossi peeling system pays utmost attention to the preservation of the shape and organoleptic properties of the raw material, from handling, which uses a feed screw to reduce the impact of the product bouncing inside the vessel, to vacuum blanching.

After this stage, the whole tomatoes are transported on motorised belts to skin-separation systems that prepare them for re-sorting, when qualified staff inspect and remove any non-conforming fruit and residual peel not removed by the upline machines.

Canning

The peeled tomatoes are then placed in cans using a special filling machine, adding strained juice obtained from the fruit not used in the peeler. Flavourings and salt may also be added to the cans, depending on the manufacturer's recipe. The cans, hermetically sealed with a seaming machine, are then sent to the pasteurisation or sterilisation line.

Indelibly printed with a tracking code as required by law, the product is finally palletised and stored for sale.

Born out of more than thirty years’ experience of its founding partners, Aronpak, an innovative division of the Ing.A.Rossi group, designs and manufactures single machines and complete lines from de-palletising, filling, closing and re-palletising for the peeled tomato industry, for the food industry in general and also for the beverage or chemical sectors.