A new variety of tomatoes will very soon hit the Indian market with increased shelf life and enhanced nutritional value  Fruit and vegetable exporters now have a reason to smile as a new variety of tomato with longer shelf life and enhanced nutritional value will very soon hit the Indian market.Compared to the usual tomatoes sold in the market at present, the new variety will stay fresh for a longer period of time, by about a week, due to addition of a yeast gene, which accelerates the production of an organic compound called spermidine. This organic compound slows down the aging process as well as delays the microbial decomposition in the tomatoes.
Who made this possible?
Avtar Handa, a horticulture professor of the US-based Purdue University, has discovered this new variety of tomato. He also found out that as polyamine is present in all living cells, it could be applied on other fruits and vegetables as well to increase their market time and nutritional value.
Talking about this, Maninder Singh, head of administration department of New Delhi-based Boom Buying Private Limited, a small-sized company dealing in export of canned and frozen food, comments, “Interesting thing is since polyamine can be applied on other fruits and vegetables too, it is expected to have an impact on the export figure of almost all fruits and vegetables.”
Exporters smile
Even though tomatoes are popular among Indians, the country has always lagged behind in terms of its export. However, with the launch of the new variety, exporters are expecting tomato export figures to rise.
In this context, Veneet Khurana, director of Green Earth Products Private Limited, a small-sized company in New Delhi which supplies wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, says, “There is high demand of tomatoes in the international market. Therefore, I believe the tomato export figure of the country will rise if we are able to export tomatoes with longer market time and high nutritional value.”
India has never been a dominant player in terms of production, export and import of tomatoes in the world market. However, Indian tomato processing industry can take pride on being the largest in South East Asia. The recent years have witnessed a surge in the output of tomatoes by 50%, with the production of processed tomato being more than twice that of Japan and considerably greater as compared to Thailand and Taiwan.
Shalmoli Kundu
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