**1. Introduction**

Tomato is one of the most valuable and popular vegetables worldwide. It is desirable that tomatoes are fertile and disease resistant, and each cultivar differs in fruit size, shape, taste, colour, and skin and flesh firmness. Tomatoes must also be resistant to transportation condi‐ tions to meet market requirements and consumer needs, as there is an increased demand for large-fruit salad-type tomato varieties. Tomatoes and tomato-based products are an important agricultural commodity worldwide. More than 80% of tomatoes grown worldwide are processed into products such as tomato juice, paste, puree, catsup, sauce, and salsa. Tomato fruit is rich in organic acids, sugars, dietary fibre, pectic substances, proteins, fats, minerals (potassium, phosphorus, sulphur, magnesium, calcium, iron, copper, and sodium), vitamins (B1, B2, B3, PP, C, provitamin A, I, and H), and carotenoids possessing antioxidant qualities (lycopene, β-carotene, etc.). Due to the importance of vegetables in the human diet, it is recommended to consume 400 -500 grams daily, 140 to 150 kg per year of various vegetables, including 25 to 32 kg of tomatoes for an adult human [1, 2]. The nutritional value, colour, and flavour of tomatoes and their products depend mainly on lycopene, β-carotene, ascorbic acid and sugars, and their ratios in the fruits. The two most important carotenoids in tomato fruits are lycopene, which determines the fruit's red colour, and β-carotene, which accounts for approximately 7% of tomato carotenoids [3]. Therefore, tomato products and their quality can be characterised by the contents of these elements. Humans gets 85% of their lycopene from tomatoes and tomato products [4], which is the reason why tomatoes are used in functional food products [5], and sometimes as functional foods [2, 6]. Epidemiological studies and other studies associated with the consumption of tomato products for the prevention of chronic diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, confirm that tomato products are func‐ tional foods and show that lycopene and β-carotene act as an antioxidant [7, 8]. In order to increase the amounts of these elements in tomato fruits, it is important to evaluate and investigate the influence of tomato genotypes on carotenoid accumulation. Previous studies have confirmed that the carotenoid content in tomato fruits could be determined by genotypic characteristics [9, 10]. This paper focuses on the biochemical and physical properties of tomatoes of different varieties, their chemical and physical properties, and the functional properties of supercritical fluid extraction of lycopene from tomato processing.
