The Italian government is pushing the European Commission to create regulations forcing EU food manufacturers using tomato paste to declare the ingredient’s origin. 

Italy reported to the EU Council of Ministers that the import of “concentrate imported from China, which is of mediocre quality but very competitive in price” is damaging EU producers. The market was already oversupplied, the Italians said.

A problem, Italy argued, was that “rules do not impose any obligation [on manufacturers] to specify the origin of the raw material on processed tomato products”. 

This was “severely curtailing the use of EU tomatoes to produce concentrate” said Italy.