Secrets of the Tomato Industry: The Empire of Red Gold | Food & Agriculture Documentary

The industrialization of the humble tomato preceded the globalized economy that was to follow. It is now as much of a commodity as wheat, rice, or petrol. The tomato’s ability to create strongly identifiable products, such as ketchup, pizza sauce, soups, sauces, drinks or frozen dishes is unbeatable.

As early as 1897, ten years before Ford started to mass-produce cars, Heinz was already converting tomatoes into standardized cans of puree. They were one of the first companies to understand the power of branding. They banned unions, imposed uniform standards of production and established genetic laboratories that ensured identical tomato plantations all around the world.

Today, wherever you are in the world, you can eat the same tomatoes. This film will trace the journey of tomato paste from Africa, Italy, China and America to show the consequences of this global business.

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[JavaDiscover]

Watch more groundbreaking investigations:

[PreppingAngel]

This is why I have 50 tomato plants in my back garden. Peas, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, carrots etc. Not counting the fruit trees and berry bushes/plants

[davidharness]

For all those bilions of dollars in the industry the tastiest tomato is the one you grow yourself!

[Lin_]

I must clap for you getting info about Chinese industrial practices. Those people rarely talk about anything

[JimboJamboJames]

Every produce and product we consume has a background like this.

[djpseudoname]

All it takes for evil to succeed is for people to say, it’s a business.

One of the best YouTube videos I’ve seen. To the content creators, thank you for posting it to be shared with others. And to the Creator of all things living and existing, thank you for having me come across this YouTube post by chance. 🙏🏼

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

[oliverlavermicocca]

This is why my family make our own sauce. Tradition and helping farmers directly is always better if possible

[undergroundblu]

Thank you for making the effort to share this with the world. It really is appreciated.

[axelf]

In Romania we still have types of tomatoes grown by peasants, plump, heavy, small number of seeds, a lot of pulp and juice, with very thin skin, very tasty and extremely easily bruised. Probably one of the best type of tomato in the world. Also our soil helps to get a better taste.

[vaslav]

Quite an eye opener.
Where I live the community have a scheme called 'Incredible Edible' where a volunteer group plant fresh vegetables around the town and tend them all year round.
They are there for anyone to pick. All organic, fresh and free.

[tesha]

If more people start making their own tomato sauce, and enough of us do that, the industry is gonna break somewhere, and when big guys fall it's big.

[j]

Top 7 countries for fresh tomato export:
Mexico: US$2.6 billion (26.5% of exported tomatoes)
Netherlands: $1.9 billion (19.5%)
Spain: $1.1 billion (10.9%)
Morocco: $767 million (7.8%)
Canada: $458.2 million (4.7%)
France: $444.3 million (4.5%)
Belgium: $326.1 million (3.3%)

[georgetzeriz]

Really great doc!! I had no clue whatsoever!!
And only stumbled on it searching for a recipe of tomato sauce 🤣
Thank you for this eye opener!

[willykitheka]

Excellent presentation of very disheartening facts!

[ibec]

Italians have been doing it for ages. Same with olive oil. If you live on the coast anywhere in the Mediterranean and see a Grimaldi ship at the port, you can be sure they're going to collect your olive oil in bulk, ship it to Italy, put a nice Italian flag on the bottle and probably sell it back to you.

[tesha]

Basically, Italians screwed up the tomato sauce industry

[MCRnursery]

Another example of why you should avoid any food product from China. The problem is, there is no requirement to label where ingredients come from in a product. This is why you can't really trust any foods you buy. There is always the incentive to cut costs by any means they can get away with, and that means getting ingredients from the cheapest suppliers.

[samanthadry]

it is exactly what they did in israel, they bought the biggest dairy company in israel. and if you see the similarities here with the tomato industry, chinese don't eat dairy as their main food.

[janiceherd]

So glad I grow and home preserve my own tomatoes.

[CanaryKin]

@ 0:56 The way he’s chomping on that tomato 😂