After two years of strong growth, the average reference price per tonne of processing tomatoes is expected to decline significantly in 2025. However, despite significant declines in China and California, the still-high values in Europe are keeping the overall level above that of 2022.
The latest information presented in the recent AMITOM and WPTC season reports shows a fairly significant decrease in the average global reference price of processing tomatoes for the 2025 season, which will begin in a few weeks.
The corresponding tonnages, since this estimate consists of a weighted value covering all tonnages for which information is available, represent, at the time of writing, just under 30 million tonnes of tomatoes, i.e., nearly 70% of the quantities that the global industry plans to process during the 2025 season. It also represents the majority of tonnages destined for global tomato pastes supplies.
The information collected concerns California, Argentina, China, Italy, Turkey, Spain, Greece, and France, and will eventually be supplemented as the harvest progresses. The levels observed in the three major processing areas maintain historical relative positions: the highest values, around USD 131/tonne, are recorded in Europe, the lowest, around USD 65/tonne, in China, while Californian prices are around USD 109/tonne, i.e., fairly close to the global average currently estimated at USD 110/tonne.
This global average indicative value of USD 110 per tonne is 10% lower than that recorded for the 2024 season and 7% lower than the average of the last three seasons; the largest annual decline is recorded in China, with a 35% drop compared to 2024, while Californian and European prices are down 12% and 7% respectively.
To put the scale of our sector's activity into perspective globally, the total value of the 2025 harvest is estimated to be between US$4.3 billion and US$4.4 billion (€4.0 billion to €4.1 billion). As a reminder, the global potato processing market was valued at approximately US$31.8 billion in 2022.
Some complementary data
Comparison and trends in indicative reference prices for processing tomatoes in the five largest processing countries and the overall weighted average.
Source: WPTC
