Europe: Tomato production rises, consumption falls

During the Tomato Conference 2016, Philippe Binard from Freshfel talked about the production, trade and consumption of fruit and vegetables. The European fruit and vegetable sector has a turnover of more than €150 billion and employs some 600,000 people. European tomato consumption dropped dramatically from 2004 to 2013: -25%. This is cause for concern within the sector.

Tomatoes are an important component within vegetable production, with a share of 16%. Interestingly, world production is increasing enormously: in 2013 it amounted to almost 130 million tons. Between 2000 to 2013 the production of tomatoes increased by 49%.

Europe sits at number two when it comes to tomato production. China is the largest producer with 40 million tons. European countries produce more than 16 million tons of tomatoes combined. The other three in the top five are India, the US and Turkey. Together they are responsible for 70% of the world’s tomato production. Noteworthy in Europe is that most of production goes to the processing sector. The largest tomato producing countries in Europe are Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

A great number of tomatoes are imported and exported within Europe. Import in 2014 amounted to 415 million euros and exports to 357 million. Europe imports most of its tomatoes from Morocco. The volume imported from that country doubled in the last 10 years. After Morocco, Turkey is a major supplier of tomatoes to Europe.

In recent years the tomato price has remained more or less the same. In 2013 this was the highest of the past five years. This year the price started out notably low.