【Epoch Times, October 26, 2024】An iconic Italian tomato sauce brand is urging the European Union to protect local tomato farmers from the “unfair” competition posed by Chinese tomatoes from Xinjiang.
According to the Financial Times on Friday (October 25), the Italian tomato sauce giant Mutti is calling on the EU to safeguard local farmers from the “unfair” competition brought by cheap Xinjiang tomato sauce and restore the “dignity” of Italian tomatoes.
Mutti is a family-run business with a 125-year history and is the largest tomato sauce producer in the region. The company produces products such as passata, pulp, and canned tomatoes.
The company’s CEO, Francesco Mutti, the fourth-generation descendant, emphasized the need for the EU to impose a ban or levy high import tariffs on Chinese products to protect the interests of Italian farmers.
In 2021, the US banned the import of tomato sauce from Xinjiang citing refusal to comply with forced labor, but the EU has not followed suit.
Mutti told the Financial Times, “We should stop importing tomato sauce from China, or impose a 60% tariff on it so that its cost does not significantly undercut that of Italy-produced goods.”
He warned that the Italian tomato industry is at risk of being undermined by the tomato sauce produced in Xinjiang, and these Chinese companies are all state-owned enterprises of the Chinese Communist Party.
Italy is the world’s third-largest tomato producer after the US and China, but the price of Chinese tomato sauce is half that of Italian products.
The UN human rights commissioner has determined that the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang engage in widespread human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority, including forced labor. Beijing denies these allegations.
Mutti also criticized the EU for imposing strict sustainability rules on farmers but failing to protect them from “environmental dumping” from China.
“We must teach our farmers how to grow better, but we must also protect them from unfair competition,” Mutti said.
He emphasized that his company only uses Italian tomatoes as raw materials.
Italian food labeling laws prohibit the dilution and sale of Chinese tomato paste, which is thicker than tomato sauce, but the practice of washing the origin of Chinese tomato products is not uncommon due to significant price differences.
Some Italian companies import Chinese tomato paste, dilute it with water and a little salt to make triple concentrated tomato sauce, and then package it as products from France or Italy, exporting some to other countries and keeping some within the EU.
Data from the Nottingham Rights Lab shows that about 13% of bulk tomato sauce produced in China is shipped to the EU, particularly to Italy.
According to the Italian agricultural producers association Coldiretti, several canned tomato factories in Naples are suspected of falsely reporting import and export quantities to customs.
Last spring, Coldiretti sent out a small fleet protesting the unloading of tons of concentrated Chinese tomato in the port of Salerno, sparking nationwide attention in Italy.
The association’s international affairs director, Luigi Pio Scordamaglio told the Financial Times, “The current competition is unfair because over 90% of Chinese tomatoes are produced in Xinjiang, where labor costs are very, very low.”
“From a moral perspective, this is unacceptable, and from a competitive perspective, it is also unacceptable,” he added.
The association is urging Europe to adopt stricter food labeling laws to identify the source of major ingredients in processed foods, enabling consumers to make informed choices.
Mutti also supports stricter food labeling rules, especially for products where tomatoes are the most important element.
“Otherwise, the end result will not be improving the environment, but shifting our production to countries where the environment is not protected,” Mutti said.
“Our goal is to dignify tomatoes,” Mutti insisted, saying, “‘No’ to treating something that is commonly seen as a commodity, ‘no—tomatoes need attention!'”