The industry tomato chain reunited at Tomato World in Piacenza on 20th and 21st February 2020. The main event on the first day was the convention coordinated by Tiberio Rabboni, president of the interbranch organization.
The data revealed that there is less produce destined to the production of concentrate and more to the production of pulp. At the same time, there has been a drop for the retail channel while the H&R sector is on the up, meaning the use of tomato derivatives is increasing in the hotel, restaurant and catering sector.
This information has been made available by 29 facilities owned by the 11 processing companies in northern Italy at the end of the 2019 campaign, which lasted 64 days (6 more than 2018). Overall, 2.3 million tons of raw material grown on 36,600 hectares were processed to obtain the following: pulp (41% with 962,320 tons); puree (29% with 675,182 tons), concentrate (29% with 672,266 tons) and sauce (1% with 28,946 tons).
More raw material was destined to make pulp with respect to 2019. There was also a drop in concentrate and a constant increase of puree. Pulp increased by 7.8% and concentrate dropped by 12.3% compared to 2018.
An interesting piece of information concerns how the raw material is distributed: while the industrial channel remains constant, there has been an increase of the H&R segment and a drop of the retail segment.