"Produced in Italy" tomato puree made in China"
The puree had been able to gain its European status despite the tomatoes being cultivated in Asia as a result of somewhat opaque EU legislation. The Chinese produced tomatoes were shipped to Italy, where they had some water and salt added to them and were packaged.
The raid then led to a battle over whether such labelling was legal or not.
Antonino Russo, 83, the "tomato king" of southern Italy, who controls AR Industrie Alimentari (Aria), has been convicted in a local court of fraudulently passing off his cheap Chinese tomato puree as Italian. Last March, he was provisionally sentenced to four months' imprisonment and a fine. The case is under appeal and Russo has succeeded in having more than 200,000 seized cans of his Asda tomato puree returned in separate proceedings. Now he is seeking to have his conviction overturned.
The EU regulations say that it is OK to describe Chinese tomato puree as produced in Italy, provided it goes through some form of processing in the latter country.
Prosecutor Roberto Lenza, who was in charge of the investigation, said: "Antonino Russo hasn't denied having used Chinese tomato. Russo defended himself by saying that, because he did process the Chinese concentrate in his plant, he could label it and sell it as Italian."
According to the prosecutor, Chinese tomatoes would arrive in Salerno in one-tonne barrels, in the form of triple concentrate. The only processing they received was to dilute the concentrate with water, add salt, and produce 142 gram pasteurised cans with a white label on a red background, that read: "Asda puree double concentrate. Produced in Italy for Asda Stores Ltd, Leeds." The lower court ruled that such "minimal" processing was insufficient to justify the labelling.
Source: guardian.co.uk
