Magazine: Tomato’s conquest

By: Szalai László Date: 2021. 04. 09. 10:21

Tomato is one of the most popular cooking ingredients, which isn’t only available fresh but also in canned, ketchup, sauce, condiment and cream formats. In general it can be said that large-scale users prefer cheaper products. This is exactly the group of buyers that suffered a blow when the lockdown started last spring. On the contrary the retail trade demands higher-quality and diverse products. In recent years private labels strengthened in this channel.

Influencing conscious shoppers

Melinda Péchy
key account manager
Foltin Globe

Stores offer a wide range of canned tomatoes and manufacturers focus on making products as convenient as possible. In the spirit of this the ‘easy open’ screw cap packaging is spreading fast. We learned from Melinda Péchy, key account manager of Foltin Globe Kft. that plain products lead in sales with an 80-percent share, while flavoured products (e.g. basil, oregano) have a 20-percent share. Besides the classic aluminium can packaging there are more and more tomato passata (purée) products, in 500ml Tetra Pak and 680ml glass bottle packaging. Foltin Globe is active in the most important sales channels, with products ranging from 70g to 4,500g in size. Currently they are busy working on the launch of easy open products.

In the middle of a price increase

Zoltán Hegedűs
commercial director
Kalocsai Fűszerpaprika

Kalocsai Fűszerpaprika Zrt. makes various products from tomato purée, using the hot break technology. Commercial director Zoltán Hegedűs told our magazine that usually they make tomato-based condiments in 2-3 versions, e.g. ketchups, pasta sauces, red pepper creams with tomato and grill sauces in various types of packaging. Sales had been developing well until the end of 2020, but in early 2021 they came to a halt a little.

Mr Hegedűs informed that product prices started to rise and in his view they will continue increasing, as ingredient prices are elevating. Innovation directions include organic, gluten-free, glutamate-free, E-free and paleo products. Buyers can be found for all types of new products, but it isn’t an easy task to keep such diverse production directions profitable.

As the product has a long shelf-life, consumers can be easily prompted to buy

ÖMKi promotes regional tomato varieties

The Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (ÖMKi) is researching and popularising the use of regional tomato varieties in Hungary. ÖMKi’s goal is to find those varieties that are the best for ecological farming, so that they will be widely grown in the gardens of consumers. In the first years of the project they analysed 35 tomato varieties at 28 cooperating eco farms.

A paradicsom térhódítása

From 2015 ÖMKi started working with Szent István University: for a 3-year period 10 regional varieties were grown and analysed in detail to find the best ones. Since 2019 a nationwide retail chain and pick-up points in Budapest help these tomato types – cocktail tomato from Máriapócs, yellow tomato from Cegléd, ‘rag tomato’ from Tolna, etc. – to return to Hungarian gardens. //