METU will coordinate the FunTomP (Functionalized Tomato Products) project, submitted under Section 1 Agrofood Value Chain of the PRIMA Program, which supports projects on agriculture, food, agro-food chain, and water themes in the Mediterranean Area within the scope of Horizon 2020. The project was funded with a total budget of ~ 2 million Euros.

In a consortium of 16 partners from 9 different Mediterranean countries (Turkey, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Egypt, Spain, Portugal, Tunisia), two indispensable foods of the Mediterranean diet, tomato and olives will be combined to produce tomato juice, sauce, powder, leather, and snack products. The products will be functionalized with proteins extracted from sugar beet leaves, a waste of the beet sugar industry. Bioactive components will also be produced in order to ensure maximum recovery from the waste generated in the process. Innovative technologies will be used in the production of these products, and advanced characterization studies will be performed for the proteins obtained.

Assoc. Prof. Mecit H. Öztop from the Department of Food Engineering will be the Principal Investigator of the project. Prof. Hami Alpas, Prof. Behiç Mert, Prof. S. Gülüm Şümnü from the Department of Food Engineering, and Assist. Prof. Süreyya Özcan Kabasakal from the Department of Chemistry will also work as researchers in the METU team. As the other Turkish Partners, Ege University, TARLA (Ankara University), Van Yüzüncü Yıl University will be the academic partners, and ASSAN Foods and SELUZ Flavor and Fragrance will be the industry partners.