Pasta Bolognese, tomato-mozzarella, pizza Margherita ... These typical dishes of Italy transport us immediately to the sun. Problem, the tomato they contain today would come mostly from China!
In his book-investigation * "The Empire of Red Gold: Global Survey of the Tomato Industry", the journalist Jean-Baptiste Malet reveals how the Italian mafia has taken the tomato and carries with it a business juicy, to the detriment of consumers.
Because the variety of tomato processed into concentrates and other derivatives is actually genetically manufactured . Indeed, it "contains 30% dry matter (against 3 to 5% for a normal tomato) to be more profitable by the ton, and a peduncle especially fragile to be picked hyper easily", as an article explains published by Obs.
When the "made in Italy" is actually "made in China"
If one thought to taste tomato concentrates, sauces or ketchup "made in Italy", as indicated by the majority of the labels of the products that one buys in the trade, in particular in supermarket, the reality is quite different .
Jean-Baptiste Malet discovered during his investigation that most Italian mafia (Camorra, Cosa Nostra, Sacra Corona Unita) exports tomatoes from China (and more specifically from Xinjiang), but also from the United States and Spain, before processing them and selling them in canned food bearing labels stamped "produced in Italy" around the world.
"Crime in agribusiness has taken such magnitude in Italy that the institutions refer to it as agromafia," says the journalist in an article published by "Le Parisien".
Tomatoes, money laundering and exploitation of migrants ...
According to the author of the book, these "mafias of the tomato" have only one purpose: launder money from their criminal enterprises.
Worse, they would even exploit migrants to do the dirty work: "Almost all Africans, Bulgarians or Romanians who work in the crops are not declared" and would be paid "between 1.16 and 1.33 euro cent per kilogram of tomatoes picked up ", we learn in the Parisian article.
A business that pays big to these mafias, € 15.4 billion in 2014 according to the journalist, and that leaves us a bitter aftertaste in the mouth.
* "The Empire of Red Gold: Global Tomato Industry Survey". Ed. Fayard. Available May 18, 2017.