In October 2019, the Tomato Forum of the magazine Food News will be held in Cologne, Germany. This is a global professional conference that brings together manufacturers, marketers, and professionals in the tomato industry. This is the industry’s 8th conference since the first conference that was held Beijing in 2012.

The conference traditionally reflects the planned trend of global manufacturing with the objectives of preventing a glut, strengthening price levels, and maintaining the industry’s profitability while dealing with the global supply and demand.

It seems that this annual gathering of the leading companies is indeed succeeding in controlling the market and stabilizing supply and demand to avoid price reductions caused by glut.

Getting the Most Out of the Tomato.

One of the great challenges facing the industry’s manufacturers is to increase the marketing of tomato products among populations that are not part of the traditional tomato consumer groups.

The answer to this challenge lies in one word: Health. Tomatoes are a worldwide health trend, mainly because of the ingredient lycopene. This is an organic pigment (carotenoid), which gives the tomato its red color. But do not judge lycopene by its cover: this is more than just a pigment; this is a powerful antioxidant that is effective in neutralizing free radicals, and thus protects the body from degenerative diseases, and lowers the risk of cardiovascular diseases. No one questions lycopene’s health benefits, and largely thanks to lycopene, the global consumption of tomatoes is on the rise, in line with the healthy lifestyle being adopted by many population groups, mainly in western nations. Through this health benefit, the manufacturers are competing for markets that are not considered natural tomato consumers, such as many of the Asian nations – other than Japan, where tomatoes have enjoyed great popularity in recent years.

In southeast Asia, even a small step up in the sale of tomato products – sauces, pastes and concentrates – is a big step for the industry. In light of the scale of the population in the Far East, even a relatively small growth in consumption is enough for achieving a significant rise in marketing volume. The question is how to accomplish this.

When Tomatoes and High-Tech Meet

One of the answers to this challenge is coming now from the Israeli food industry – from the LycoRed Group – and is based on advanced studies and innovative technologies. Israeli research has shown that the process of extracting lycopene from tomatoes results in a product that functions as a salt enhancer, enabling the reduction of salt levels in foods. It turns out that through a certain process the lycopene-less tomato can be turned into a natural flavor enhancer that – when added to foods in concentrations appropriately adjusted and customized for each food – will reduce the use of regular salt, and yield the health advantage of lower sodium levels. This innovative development thus enables a significant drop in the use of regular salt, which is consumed in most parts of the world in excessive quantities, and does not benefit human health. We can therefore look optimistically toward the future of the tomato industry: the combination of proper manufacturing and marketing policies, smart developments that increase consumption, and a mantle of packaging solutions such as those provided by Aran, ensures that tomato products will remain on the highway to success.

TOP 40 – tomato processing companies

Tomato News, a major newsletter focusing on the global tomato market, conducted a survey around the top tomato processing companies In 2017/2018 to measure manufacturing capacities. The total capacity of the 40 biggest tomato processing companies in the world amounted to more than 35.7 million metric tonnes (mT) of raw tomato, which is approximately 94% of the volume actually processed during the most recent season (37.8 million mT).

Aran’s contribution to the world’s tomatoes industries

Among these 40 companies, more than 21 of them are respectable clients of Aran Group. Aran is a major contributor to the tomato industry by supplying top quality bag-in-box solutions.

In that list we can state ‘Morning Star’ – (U.S.A) which produces more than 59,000 MT daily, ‘Sugal Group’ – (Portugal, Spain, Chile) which processes 29,000 MT every day. ‘Kagome Global’, ‘Conesa’ and ‘Olam’ are also major players in the tomato global market and they all are using Aran’s packaging solutions.

Aran bags are filled by designated machines adapted to the tomato industry. Aran’s aseptic solution is a major part of the comprehensive procedure of tomato processing, including receipt of the tomato transformed into sauces, pastes or concentrates after cleaning, pasteurization and cooling, until aftermath tomato product is produced. The process of filling the bags is done under sterile conditions to ensure product shelf life.