The Tomato Paste industry continues to show remarkable growth each year, despite COVID.
We think the world will produce 38.9m tonnes in 2021.
Pricing has concluded in some places, with the EU racing ahead.

Tomato Industry Shows Strong Growth

Over the past 20 years, the Tomato industry has grown at more than 4% each year (Compound Annual Growth Rate).
This year, we think 38.9m tonnes of Tomato will be processed globally.
Demand should sit marginally above this, at 40m tonnes.

Tomato Pricing is Well Underway

Pricing has concluded in the EU (Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Hungary), the USA (California), China, and Turkey.
Processing Tomatoes in 2021 (valued on 2nd April) will be 7% more expensive than the average price between 2018 and 2020 (84 USD/mt).
Chinese Processing Tomatoes remain the cheapest, at approximately 72 USD/mt.
This year’s reference price for Californian Processing Tomatoes sits at approximately 84.5 USD/short ton, which is just above USD 93/MT, and up 6% year-on-year.

European sales have largely benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic.
China was more severely affected, however, with foreign Concentrate Puree sales dropping by more than 8% (74kmt) in 2020.
This drop was fuelled by an unfavourable exchange rate, but exorbitant ocean freight rates also played a part.
Turkey, Ukraine, Peru, Russia and, to lesser extent, Chile felt the brunt of this.
China’s new crop will commence in August and prices for the new season will be available from the end of the month.
We’re anticipating a further increase as the planted area should be down 20% following a freeze.

The EU may well have sold 85% of its tomato crop by the end of June; most processors are already sold out.
Processors that committed volume in 2020 and 2021 (to date) will be able to honour these contracts.
Prices are higher year-on-year, between EUR 100-150, depending on the volume.
This comes as raw material costs are up following poor production and strong demand.
Energy, packaging, and steel drum costs are also up and causing disruption on final pricing of tomato paste.
Deliveries for 2021 crop should start in September.

China should produce around 4.8m tonnes of tomato this year; as mentioned, this is down 20% year-on-year.
This, together with increased packaging (30%) and steel costs, should also drive prices higher here too.
China’s 2021 crop will commence in August and prices will be available at the end of June.
We think they’ll be above 815-870 USD/mt for 36-38 brix on an FOB basis.

Egypt’s Summer crop has commenced, as has Tomato Paste processing, achieving a colour level above 2.1 A/B, which bodes well for processors as this meets the demand of many food producers.
Egypt has already exported almost 35k tonnes of Tomato Paste, up by almost 9% year-on-year.
The steel market has impacted packaging costs and has considerably influenced the recent price increase.