In a global context where canned tomatoes and sauces are struggling to find their place, tomato pastes are responsible for most of the increase in overall trade. International price patterns have produced a misalignment between value and quantity trends, albeit more limited than in 2022.
As can be seen from the national trade statistics published monthly on our website www.tomatonews.com, the upturn in exports observed in the tomato paste category in 2022/2023 was confirmed last year (+7% year-on-year), while the increases recorded in the canned tomatoes (1%) and sauces (1%) categories, while positive, are still low enough to be described as sluggish growth.
The overall global dynamic definitively confirms the break with the levels and rhythms observed prior to 2019, and brings the total quantities of raw tomatoes absorbed by the worldwide trade in processed products to over 32 million tonnes (estimated, in metric tonnes (t)) in 2023/2024. However, this historically high tonnage represents only around 72% of the quantities processed during the previous season (2023, 44.4 million tonnes), a significant proportion of which was used to replenish stocks.
Another striking feature of this year's performance, which took place against a backdrop still marked by high inflation, was the misalignment between patterns in values and quantities, and the exceptional rise in the value of overall exports. Estimated foreign sales for the period running July 2023-June 2024 amount to almost USD 10.7 billion, a historic figure, up 12% on the 2022/2023 marketing year and 31% on the average for the previous three years (2020/2021 to 2022/2023).
For the record, nearly 35% of these total sales went to Italian processors, around 12% to Chinese companies, 8% to US companies and the same amount to Spanish companies. Portuguese processors accounted for around 5% of this figure, Turkish and Chilean processors for 4% and 3% respectively, and Dutch operators for just under 6%.
Tomato pastes (codes 200290): another significant increase in sales
As far as can be ascertained from customs statistics, world exports of tomato pastes (code 200290) have undergone two significant shifts over the last twenty-five years. A dip occurred at the start of the 2010-2020 decade and, without looking too closely into the details of the speed of growth, it is clear that the last few years have seen an acceleration or, at the very least, a sustained rise in the intensity of annual flows, the origin of which can be found in the Covid health crisis. In fact, the record quantities mobilized during the two years of the pandemic have been far exceeded over the last two marketing years, which have taken the volume of tomato pastes delivered abroad to around 4 million tonnes of finished products.
With over 3.6 million tonnes of the 3.9 million tonnes absorbed worldwide in 2023/2024, the TOP12 tomato paste processing and exporting countries have significantly increased their foreign business (+6.5%) compared to the previous year. The most notable performances were recorded for Iran, China, the United States and Italy.
The 2023/2024 marketing year has seen a virtually unchanged distribution of market shares between leading processing countries and destination regions. Alongside the major processing and supply hubs of China and Italy, this year has seen the repositioning of US and Iranian products, which are overtaking Spanish operations. In terms of markets, the Western EU, the Middle East, West Africa and the Far East still account for the bulk of products absorbed.
The following tables show the export performance of the twelve major processing countries to the sixteen main consumer regions. In 2023/2024, three quarters of global tomato paste movements involved products of Chinese (1.2 million t), Italian (0.79 million t), US (0.38 million t), Iranian (0.29 million t) or Spanish (0.28 million t) origin. Similarly, four major consumer regions accounted for two-thirds of the products mobilized. Nearly 1.1 million t were shipped to Western EU markets, 0.61 million t to the Middle East, 0.35 million t to West African markets and 0.3 million t to the Far East. With 3.6 million tonnes of pastes exported, the TOP12 countries controlled more than 93% of worldwide trade in 2023/2024, a proportion that has been steadily declining for almost twenty years.
Last year, the four main consumer regions increased their supplies. For two of them, the Western EU and the Far East, the annual variation was relatively marginal; for the Middle East and West Africa, both quantities delivered and growth were significant, reaching 27% for the former and 28% for the latter. Further increases were also reported in the markets of Mediterranean Africa, Central America and Australia-New Zealand. Lastly, a number of markets recorded significant downturns of several tens of thousands of tonnes, notably in Eurasia, Southern Africa and Eastern Europe.
The result of these regional variations has been an increase of just over 220,000 tonnes (+6.5%) in the quantities delivered in 2023/2024 by the TOP12 countries, compared with the 2022/2023 marketing year.
Against this buoyant backdrop, the main leading countries benefited from increased demand. Despite mediocre performances in several key regions (Western EU, Far East, Eurasia, etc.), the Chinese industry improved its results in the Middle East (see related articles) and West Africa, increasing its overall business by almost 85,000 tonnes (+7.6%).
After a particularly mediocre year in 2022/2023, the prize for best growth (+115,000 t) goes to the Iranian sector, whose exports of pastes have benefited from developments in the Middle East and West Africa, but have also increased their presence in the declining markets of Eurasia and the Eastern EU.
The Italian and US sectors also performed well, in regions where demand has been on the rise, and without being penalized by the significant downturns recorded in non-EU or Eastern European, Eurasian, South African or East African markets. Italian foreign sales of pastes rose by 49,000 t in 2023/2024, and US foreign sales by 67,000 t.
In line with the results for the 2022/2023 marketing year, and as predicted by our monthly monitoring, exports of Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish pastes in the last marketing year were once again lower than in the previous period. Declines were significant, reaching -21,000 t for Portuguese products, -47,000 t for Spanish pastes and -56,000 t for Turkish products.
Summary presentation of tomato paste exports in 2023/2024, for trade flows over 5,000 metric tonnes (t).
Trends in national export performance for tomato pastes over the last five years.
Distribution of world trade for tomato pastes (codes 200290) in 2023/2024.
Details of the 2023/2024 results for each of these countries are available on request from the TomatoNews team.
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Source: tradedatamonitor.com
