The tomato fruit is a classified botanically as berry. Cherry tomatoes are small and round and grown only for fresh market. Processing types are usually somewhat larger and can be pear, plum or 'square-round' in shape. Although most processing tomatoes are canned or processed into sauces and condiments, small percentages are also sold fresh or as 'sun-dried' tomatoes. Although the eating quality is very good, beefsteak tomatoes are now grown mainly in greenhouses or by home gardeners because they do not ship well and are more likely to crack and to be irregularly shaped.
Fruit can be yellow, orange, pink, red, or even white.
The red color comes from the pigment lycopene while the orange and yellow colors come from betacarotene pigments. Yellow and orange tomatoes are equal or higher in nutrition to red tom atoes because lycopene has no particular nutritional value while carotenoids are a source of vitamin A. Pink tomatoes have the same interior color as red tomatoes but have a transparent rather than yellow skin. Old tomato cultivars are of many shapes and sizes, including ridged. Most of the fruit fresh weight is water, with solids constituting only 5 percent. These solids consist of water insoluble substances such as cell walls, and soluble components such as sugars and acids.