 "A shopper walks next to a photographic depiction of tomatoes on a Tesco supermarket in London, Britain, February 26, 2023. File Photo/Reuters")
“Italian” tomato purées sold by supermarkets in the United Kingdom have been found to contain tomatoes from China, an investigation claims. Several supermarkets in the UK, including Waitrose and Tesco, sell their own-brand tomato purée as “Italian”. However, tomatoes used by them in their products are allegedly produced in China.
Items like Tesco’s “Italian Tomato Purée” and Waitrose’s “Essential Tomato Purée” have been accused of using tomatoes grown in China by employing forced labour, as per a BBC report.
Let’s take a closer look.
Not Italian but Chinese?
Tests by the British broadcaster revealed that 17 products sold by major UK and German retailers, including Waitrose, Tesco, Morrisons and Asda, possibly contain Chinese tomatoes.
The tested products include Essential Waitrose Tomato Purée, Asda’s Organic Tomato Purée, Tesco’s Italian Tomato Purée and Morrisons Tomato Purée, which advertise own-brand tomato purées as “Italian”.
China is the world’s largest tomato producer, with most tomatoes grown in the Xinjiang region.
The BBC Eye investigation found that most tomatoes produced in Xinjiang are transported by train through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and into Georgia, from where they are shipped to Italy.
As per the report, the Italian company Antonio Petti was a major recipient of Xinjiang tomatoes.
Antonio Petti, which is part of the Petti group that produces tomato goods, received over 36 million kg of tomato paste between 2020 and 2023.
Pasquale Petti, the General Manager of Italian Food, part of the Petti group, admitted to using Chinese tomatoes. “No one in Europe wants Chinese tomatoes . But if for you it is OK, we will find a way to produce the best price possible,” he said.
Responding to the BBC investigation, the Petti group claimed it had not purchased tomato paste from Xinjiang Guannong after the company was sanctioned by the United States for using forced labour in 2020.
All the supermarkets said they took the allegations seriously and carried out their own internal probes, finding no evidence of Chinese tomatoes. Many also questioned the methodology used by BBC’s experts.
A Tesco spokesperson told The Independent it suspended “supply from the site as soon as we were made aware of these claims”.
Rewe, a German supermarket chain, said it immediately withdrew the products but said its own investigations “rule out Xinjiang as the origin of the raw materials used in our products”.
Waitrose, Morrisons and Edeka said their probes did not reveal the presence of Chinese tomatoes, as per BBC.
However, Lidl admitted importing Chinese tomatoes briefly in Germany owing to supply issues.
UK govt reacts
The issue came up before the UK Parliament on Monday, with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) saying it was “extremely concerning”.
A spokesman for the UK Department for Business and Trade, as per The Telegraph, said: “We are clear that no company in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chain.
“We keep our approach to how the UK can best tackle forced labour and environmental harms in supply chains under continual review and work internationally to enhance global labour standards.”
Xinjiang’s ‘forced labour’
The United Nations has accused China of torturing and abusing Uyghur and other mainly Muslim minorities in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
China allegedly forces these minorities to produce tomatoes. The United Nations Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur, Tamoya Obokata, had concluded in 2022 that the Chinese government is subjecting its ethnic minorities in Xinjiang to forced labour.
Beijing has denied the allegations, dismissing the UN report as “disinformation and lies”.
A report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released in 2022 has also said there are indications that China’s labour and employment schemes “appear to be discriminatory in nature or to involve elements of coercion.”
It concluded that China may be engaged in crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.
With inputs from agencies