Seagate does its own farming in Baja California. Although this relatively mild climate allows for year-round farming, there are certain times of the year that give us the best results for certain crops.
Generally, we plant our tomatoes beginning in early summer. Seagate uses the Roma variety because of its lower moisture, less susceptibility to the heat of summer, and its high yield of lycopene.
Seagate has been producing Lycopene for over 20 years. Unlike conventional producers, which are very few companies around the world, we do not use solvents to extract the lycopene from the tomatoes. Instead, we grind the tomatoes and then freeze-dry the puree. The picture below shows the tomatoes after they have been ground up and are then stored in bulk baskets.
Once we have accumulated 500 kgs of pureed tomatoes, we run these through our freeze-dryer and convert it into a dry powder. No chemicals or alcohol are used. The moisture content is such that 100 lbs of tomatoes will yield less than 3 lbs of powder. However, the concentration that results is sufficient that each 500 mg. capsule of Seagate’s Lycopene-15 is the equivalent of one whole tomato which provides 15 mgs of Lycopene. That is why this product was named Lycopene-15.
Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant phytonutrient that has been linked to promoting cardiovascular health, along with being beneficial to the prostate and cervix. Lycopene is naturally-occurring in vegetables having red color such as watermelon, red peppers and tomatoes.
