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Iran: Tomato Products Trade (2024–Nov 2025)

22/01/2026

François-Xavier Branthôme
Iran,
Middle East
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The performance of the Iranian tomato processing sector, heavily focused on the production and export of tomato paste, varies considerably from year to year, both in terms of processed quantities and external trade performance.

In the relatively short list of major global exporters of tomato products, Iran stands out as the only country whose customs services officially declare no imports. To estimate the inevitable inbound flows, it is necessary to examine exports destined for Iran. Customs statistics from other countries do indeed show product movements, which are extremely sporadic, geographically recurring, of highly variable importance, and practically nonexistent over the last ten years. Therefore, the import figures presented in the tables of the monograph on Iran on our website tomatonews.com are provided for informational purposes only for the period 2020-2024.

Essentially, the Iranian sector remains resolutely focused on foreign markets, with significant volumes only in the tomato paste sector (HS codes 200290): exports represent only a few dozen tons on average annually in the canned goods sector (HS codes 200210), and a few thousand in the tomato sauce and ketchup sector (HS codes 210320).

Data from the last five years confirm previous observations published on the TomatoNews website: the Iranian commercial sphere is concentrated on two regions, Eurasia (Afghanistan, Turkey, Russia, Armenia) and the Middle East (Iraq, UAE, Oman), which together accounted for more than 170,000 tons of products annually, representing nearly 90% of the tomato paste exported by Iran, over the period 2020-2024. On a much smaller scale, the Indian subcontinent (Pakistan), the EU (Italy, Romania, Bulgaria), and Africa (Ivory Coast, Libya) each received between 1,600 and 4,300 tons over the same period, representing 1 to 3% of Iran’s total exports.

Hampered by two poor processing seasons in 2020 and 2021, the Iranian sector subsequently recorded performance in 2022 and 2023 closer to its peak levels of the early 2000s, resulting in a very high, but not statistically significant, 41% increase in exports in 2024 compared to the previous three years.

In the first eleven months of 2025, the level of external activity in the tomato paste sector declined sharply again, reaching only 184,000 tons compared to 259,000 tons in the same period (November-October) of the previous year. This decrease reflects the further downturn during the 2024 processing season in Iran, where only 1.4 million tons were processed. According to the WPTC report, “It has not been a great year in the country, with a 30% reduction in production compared to last year (2023). The reduction is due to production being delayed by two to three weeks, to water shortages and electrical power cuts, but also to processors not being able to match the high prices farmers could get on the fresh market.”

The region most impacted by the Iranian slowdown is Eurasia, where the quantities delivered fell from 113,000 tons to 65,000 tons during the periods considered. Turkey, Russia, and to a lesser extent Armenia, bore the brunt of this sharp reduction in activity: Iranian concentrate deliveries to Turkey fell by nearly 28,600 tons (-85%), those to Russia by 24,500 tons (-75%), and those to Armenia by 5,800 tons (-63%). Exports to Libya and Côte d’Ivoire, Romania and Bulgaria, Pakistan, Italy, Oman, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates saw drastic declines. Two markets appear to be bucking this trend: between the first eleven months of 2024 and 2025, Iranian tomato paste shipments increased by 27,000 tons (+43%) to Iraq and by 11,200 tons (+45%) to Afghanistan.
 
In 2025, the Iranian tomato processing sector processed 1.8 million tons of tomatoes, an increase of 400,000 tons (+29%) compared to the 2024 season.

Additional information

Evolution of quantities processed by the Iranian sector since 2003.

You can consult the country profile for Iran here.

Sources: TDM, WPTC