Thread by @basilokpara

On a side note, let me give us a little insight into what happens in the tomato paste importation business.

Most of the tomato paste used in Nigeria are imported, even those who claim to produce at home actually import drums of concentrated tomatoes and package at home.

But before then, the best and dominant brands produced their tin tomatoes in Italy because of the very high quality.

In the southern part of Italy called Campania region, they have the best farms and they harvest tomatoes. And they are really good.

Their factories are top notch. The basic ingredients for concentrated tin tomatoes are Tomatoes and Salt. Nothing more is added. And they are well packaged.

But due to our exchange rate and cost of production, the importation from Italy is deemed expensive.

You know how we love profits in Nigeria at the detriment of our people. Many companies decided to move to China to start importing from there.

Chinese products are mostly substandard products, everyone knows that.

In China, some companies started experimenting in order to gain some market advantage. They started adding things like starch and coloring to their tomato paste.

And they package tin tomatoes from China in shinny tins which looks very attractive.

The starch makes the stew thick and the coloring makes it very reddish. Many people liked it and there was a very high demand of these tomatoes.

Nigerians did not care about the quality, they cared only about the results they get not minding the effects on their health.

I have not written this to knock any products but to enlighten us to this practice. Next time when buying tin tomatoes, I’m sure you will check to see the ingredients used in production.

Thank you for reading.