The information website by, for and about
the tomato processing industry globally

Tomato News goes fully digital

03/07/2017

François-Xavier Branthôme
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On 1 July 2017, a major shift occured for Tomato News, for its editorial team and for you, our faithful readers as from that date onward, Tomato News became a "web only" publication. In order to gain in performance, proximity and reactivity, Tomato News has decided, after a lot of debate and discussion, to break free from the constraints – and give up on the elegance – of the printed paper page. The magazine of the worldwide tomato processing industry will henceforth be available exclusively in electronic format on Internet. The historical address that you have been used to using will remain unchanged. More than ever, www.tomatonews.com remains the go-to resource for worldwide information regarding the tomato processing industry…

This shift is not the first major transformation of Tomato News, in a history that is closely linked to that of the AMITOM and the World Processing Tomato Council, as well as to the history of the World Congresses and, we hope, to that of our readers, our partners and the industry itself as a whole.

 

Messrs. Cantu, Miklichansky, Gomendio and Bièche
Since its creation by Jacques Miklichansky and Bernard Bièche, just a few months before the first World Congress in Avignon in 1989, and since the first pages published in springtime that same year, not a month has gone by without the Tomato News magazine – the only worldwide information resource exclusively dedicated to the processing tomato – bringing its readers the main news, facts, figures and enlightened and impartial comments, in English and in French, helping them to understand this highly diverse industry, with all of its changes and complexities.

The formats have changed, the presentation has evolved, the design has become clearer, the analyses have gone deeper and the comments have gained in relevance. For twenty-eight years, the team in charge of leading Tomato News has retained all of its editorial independence despite various changes and has endeavored to meet the expectations of readers by collecting and interpreting current news items and new knowledge on a monthly basis…. Under the auspices of the CMITI until 2005, and then thanks to TomatoLand Information Services over the past twelve years, the challenge for each issue has been to go beyond a simple report format, beyond the basic duty to inform, and commit on each line of each page to an approach that objectively promotes and intelligently defends the interests of the different partners of the industry, in a permanent spirit of respect for their differences and, frequently, for the arguments of their competitiveness. 

Almost 340 issues, both regular and special editions, followed the pages published in spring 1989, describing, season after season and country after country, the forecasts, the events, the results, the agricultural issues and the industrial challenges, the products and their packaging, the dynamics, the trends, the expert analyses, the political and regulatory frameworks, the research, the innovation, the market situations, etc.

A few days ago, the magazine's format has changed once and for all. Electronic documents replace the hardcopy monthly magazine, whilst maintaining a printable version option. 
Tomato News will continue to accompany the tomato industry and its operators by making available for them and all its readers the entire contents of the new website in open and free access, including: 
– items of information, along with current news and accessible analyses, which will be available from the opening of the homepage, as well as documentary archives that can be accessed by an advanced research module (using keywords, company names, countries, etc.),
– a complete directory of industry companies – tomato processors, growers, associations, suppliers, equipment manufacturers, service providers, etc. – supplying details of all their product ranges,
– an electronic newsletter (weekly + special current reports),
– various resources: events calendar, information sources, weather forecasts, general industry information,
– advertisement, with offers available at different levels: "partner", "sponsor", "advertiser".

All of the website will be available in English, but a large part of the information will also be accessible in French.

This does not mean that paper copy will be completely abandoned: each year, Tomato News will publish a special printed issue summarizing the main points of the season and offering a report on a topic of current relevance. The first of these annual issues will coincide with the next big industry event – the World Processing Tomato Congress – which will be held in Greece in 2018…

Tomato News: about the industry, for the industry and by the industry.

François Xavier Branthôme, Editor