Published on 31 October 2024, updated on 20 July 2026
Chinese imports are damaging the “dignity” of Italian tomatoes, says Mutti’s chief
Francesco Mutti calls for protection for farmers affected by “unfair” competition from China’s Xinjiang region.
Chinese imports are damaging the “dignity” of Italian tomatoes, says the head of the Mutti group.
The Italian tomato sauce magnate has urged Brussels to protect farmers from “unfair” competition posed by low-cost tomato paste produced in China’s Xinjiang region and to restore the “dignity” of Italy’s staple red fruit. Francesco Mutti, chief executive of the eponymous producer of ingredients including tomato purée, tomato pulp and tinned tomatoes, said that an EU ban or high tariffs on imports of Chinese products are necessary to safeguard Italian farmers. In 2021, the United States banned imports of tomato paste from Xinjiang, citing concerns over forced labour, but Brussels has not followed suit.
“We should stop importing tomato paste from China or impose a 60 per cent tax on it so that its cost is not so different from that of Italian products,” Mutti told the Financial Times at the headquarters of his 125-year-old family-run business, which recorded a turnover of €665 million last year.
He warned that the Italian tomato industry risks being undermined by tomato paste produced by Chinese state-owned enterprises in Xinjiang, where the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has documented widespread human rights violations against the local Uyghur Muslim minority, including forced labour. Beijing has denied the allegations. Francesco Mutti: “We must protect [our farmers] from unfair competition.”
As the fourth generation to run the business on the outskirts of Parma, Mutti criticised Brussels for forcing farmers to adhere to strict sustainability rules without protecting them from “environmental dumping” from China. “We must teach our farmers how to farm better, but we must also protect them from unfair competition,” said Mutti, whose company uses only Italian tomatoes. “Otherwise, the end result will not be to improve the environment, but to shift our production abroad, where the environment is not protected.”
It is estimated that China accounts for nearly 23 per cent of global tomato production this year, compared with around 18 per cent in 2023, according to the World Processing Tomato Council.
Low-cost imports are a sensitive issue in Italy, the world’s third-largest tomato producer after the United States and China. Chinese tomato paste costs half as much as Italian products.
Last spring, Coldiretti, the influential Italian farmers’ association, sent a flotilla of small boats to protest against the unloading of tonnes of Chinese tomato paste at the port of Salerno. “Competition today is not fair because over 90 per cent of Chinese tomatoes are produced in the Xinjiang region and labour costs are very, very low,” said Luigi Pio Scordamaglio, Coldiretti’s director of international affairs. “This is unacceptable from an ethical point of view, but also in terms of competition.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has reiterated that allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang are “a lie” used by certain countries, including the United States, to undermine China and stifle the development of Chinese industries. “It is hoped that European individuals and institutions will recognise the harmful schemes behind the lie of so-called ‘forced labour’, refrain from tarnishing China’s image, and not use this as a pretext for implementing protectionist trade measures,” the ministry stated.
Xinjiang’s vast, export-oriented tomato industry has grown as part of Beijing’s economic development strategy for the restive western region. Key players in the sector include ChalkIS, a corporate affiliate of the sixth paramilitary division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and COFCO Tomato, a subsidiary of a vast state-owned agri-food conglomerate, according to the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab and the companies’ websites.
COFCO states that its 12 processing plants have the capacity to produce 300,000 tonnes of bulk tomato paste each year. Around 13 per cent of the bulk tomato paste produced in China is shipped to the EU, particularly to Italy, where it is further processed – either by dilution or blending with local tomato-based products – and repackaged, mainly for re-export, according to the Nottingham Rights Lab.
Strict Italian food labelling laws prohibit the sale of diluted Chinese tomato concentrate as ‘passata’, but the incentives to cheat can be tempting, given the price difference.
Coldiretti is lobbying for Europe to adopt stricter food labelling laws – requiring the origin of the main ingredients in processed foods to be identified – which, in its view, would enable consumers to make informed choices. Mutti also supports such rules, which are necessary “particularly for a product in which the tomato is the most important ingredient”, he said. “The aim is to give tomatoes their due,” insisted Mutti, “to take a product that has often been regarded as a commodity and say: ‘No, tomatoes matter!’”.
Francesco Mutti, president of Centromarca (Confindustria), would be 100 per cent right if:
1) Italy hadn’t made such a mess of food labelling. For an update on this , you can read *The NutrInform Battery, Italy’s response to Nutri-Score food labelling: a total (predictable) political and operational failure*
3)our country didn’t exploit farm workers on a massive scale.
On Xinjiang, read about what’s happening in the non-food sector with Shein.
And if Maurizio Maggiani rails against these practices, you might think he’s “exaggerating”.
But, unfortunately, when reading the news reports, we have to change our minds..
In fact, on 3 June 2025: “a young Moroccan farm labourer was abandoned outside the hospital with a leg lacerated by one of the agricultural vehicles used during the carrot harvest”.
The worker had been ordered “to claim that he had fallen from a low wall”…The Fucino Plain is home to around 500 farms spread over 160 square kilometres. According to the trade unions, at least 6,500 farm labourers work there, the vast majority of whom are Moroccan. Many work 12–14 hours a day, including at night and at weekends. ‘Grey-market’ contracts are widespread: part of the work is declared, the rest is paid under the table. A., however, was employed entirely under the table…
And in August 2025, MarioSassi reported that: problems in agriculture, where they exist, unfortunatelyremain the same as ever. The Carabinieri carried out a series of labour inspections at agricultural businesses throughout Italy from 31 July to 11 August. A total of 888 businesses were inspected, of which 468 were found to be non-compliant (52.70 per cent). During the inspections, 3,601 job positions were checked, of which 729 were found to be non-compliant (20.24 per cent); of these, 196 were found to involve undeclared labour (26.88 per cent of the 729 non-compliant jobs); among the jobs checked, 1,557 involved non-EU workers, of whom 79 were employed illegally, whilst 30 were found to be undocumented. A total of 19 minors were found at the workplaces, of whom 9 were working illegally. Following the inspections , 113 orders suspending business operations were issued against 12.72 per cent of the 888 companies inspected.
The brief news item below, from *Corriere della Sera*, concerning the worker who was injured and left on the street, is dated 17 November 2024. In Grado, Italy
Obviously, this is one of many obscure incidents that will never be reported except in a brief news item or a ‘trade journal’, which few people – unless they are involved in the world of distribution and manufacturing – read.
The investigation began following the tragedy on 4 October on the Fondovalle dell’Agri. Four dead. Ten workers crammed into a Renault Scenic. But even before the accident, there was everyday life. And that life, as recorded in the reports, bears the hallmarks of exploitation
The law to combat illegal labour recruitment in rural areas: cutting-edge only on paper
Law 199, passed by the Renzi government in 2016, has remained unenforced: Italian organised crime has even forged an ironclad pact with foreign mafias from the very same countries from which the immigrants exploited as slaves originate. This is why…: non-existent prevention (= ineffective checks), fear amongst workers and a suffocatingly slow bureaucratic process in handling complaints and any potential regularisation of workers’ status, with no protection against mafia-linked labour brokers.
A vicious circle and a major defeat for a country that would like to be described as ‘civilised’ but where the informal economy absorbs more than 3 million workers, concentrated in agriculture, services and commerce.
Read more about the exploitation of workers in Italy:
Naceur died on the hottest day of the summer whilst picking watermelons for 1 cent per kilo (2023).
Veneto: illegal labour recruitment and unfair practices in large-scale retail
The bitter side of citrus fruits: the exploitation of workers in the fields (2025).
All workers employed off the books; company suspended (2026).
Mamadou, a 38-year-old farm labourer, died of starvation in his car-home (2026).
