Record production in North Italy

2025 Processing Tomato Campaign: official data from OI Pomodoro on the Northern Italy campaign

2025 tomato harvesting and processing campaign is concluded in the basin of Northern Italy, with the last delivery to a processing plant on 11^th October: excellent quality and record quantity of tomato delivered.

The negotiation between the Producer Organisations (POs) and processing companies (PCs) took place within the Northern Italy Area Framework Agreement, which has been signed before the end of January, allowing for the planning of both agricultural and industrial production.

Transplanting, thanks to a professional agricultural part organised in POs, which managed weather difficulties, was well scheduled, creating the conditions for a long harvesting campaign from early July to early October, without accumulation of tomato to be delivered. The seedlings were planted on 45,030 hectares: an 8% increase in tomato surfaces compared to previous years, widely justified by the demand for raw material from the industrial system, given the significant low production in the last two years due to adverse climatic conditions.

Unfortunately, the open-field seedlings were affected by the abnormally high temperatures in June and early July, which caused flower drop, resulting in a shortage of tomato fruits expected to ripen in August. During the harvesting campaign in the central-eastern part of the Northern Italy basin, moreover, heavy rainfall events caused further production losses.

This situation is also reflected in the data that the OI Pomodoro collects and elaborates weekly for the entire Northern Italy area. The delivery trend was unusual, with a peak at the beginning of August, a drop in the central part, and another peak in the second half of September.

At the end of August, the 2025 campaign seemed to be heading toward a clearly unsatisfactory result in terms of harvested quantities, but thanks to the favourable weather conditions in September, the high delivery volumes in the final weeks allowed the record quantity of tomato ever delivered and processed in the Northern Italy basin. At the end of the campaign, therefore, the shortfall compared to the total amount of contracted tomatoes was about 13%.

The tomato delivered amounts to 3,121,617 tons, characterized by excellent quality, with an intense and well-defined colour and an excellent Brix level of 5, which determines the level of sweetness and flavour, resulting in a positive payment index, higher than the maximum recorded in the previous five years.

The high Brix level has partially compensated, in terms of processing yields, the shortfall in deliveries compared to contracted tomato. Growers report unsatisfactory field yields also this year, having achieved an average of 69.3 tons per hectare, significantly lower than the five-year historical average of 73.2 t/ha. Therefore, a not high saleable quantity has been produced, upon which, although supported by a price reward for the excellent quality delivered, per-hectare production costs burden.

The President of the IO Processing Tomato of Northern Italy, Giuseppe Romanini, commented on the data as follows:

“Also the 2025 campaign, while achieving the highest total quantity of tomato ever produced in Northern Italy and an excellent quality of raw material, records unsatisfactory yields per hectare. This confirms that, to face the challenges posed by the effects of climate change, our agriculture must be equipped with effective tools to protect field production and be supported by varietal research projects, aimed at obtaining varieties suited to our soils and to the changed climatic conditions, preserving the sustainability of the supply chain, respect for the environment and the competitiveness of our agricultural and industrial enterprises on the global market.”