The Casalasco Consortium kicks off the tomato harvest

In the coming days, the Casalasco Tomato Consortium will begin the 2017 processing campaign at its three plants in Rivarolo del Re (CR), Gariga di Podenzano (PC), and Fontanellato (PR).

This year, despite the drought problems experienced in recent weeks, which particularly affected the areas of Parma and Piacenza, Casalasco's agronomists predict an excellent quality harvest and which, barring unforeseen weather events, should be in line with last year's volumes, which stood at approximately 540,000 tons, thus confirming Casalasco as the leading supply chain for industrial tomato production and processing in Italy.

The processed tomatoes from the members of the Casalasco Consortium are used for the production of pulps, purees, and concentrates for markets in 60 countries across five continents, both through co-packing activities, i.e., third-party processing, which is the company's core business, and through the Pomì brand, which year after year increases its presence and market share worldwide.

On the Italian front, production forecasts according to Amitom (Association Méditerranéenne internationale de la Tomate) stand at 4.9 million tons, a decrease compared to last year (-5%), probably due to a decrease of approximately 7% in the hectares of land allocated for tomato cultivation, both in the Northern Tomato District areas and in Southern Italy.

Globally, California and China will rank first and second respectively, followed by Italy and Spain. However, 14% of the world's processed tomato production comes from Italy. This percentage rises to 49% when considering only the European market. These figures place Italy at the international forefront of a sector that, according to 2016 campaign data presented during the latest edition of Tomato Day in Parma, generated a turnover of 3.1 billion euros.