METRO has been working with the family business Steriltom from Piacenza since 1990. The so-called Common Sourcing (centralised purchasing) currently procures 23 different tomato products for more than 20 METRO countries for the own brands METRO Chef and Aro. Pizza sauce, passata and above all: Polpa Fine.
‘We focus on a single product to be the best in our field - we have been for generations.’ Alessandro Squeri, General Manager of Steriltom, continues his family's passion for tomatoes. The combination of culinary tradition, the knowledge of cultivation, varieties and selection accumulated over generations and the company's specialisation is what makes the company so special.
In the 1930s, ready-made Polpa Fine was not yet commercially available. Back then, Italian housewives chopped whole, peeled tomatoes either by hand or with a small grinder. Grandfather Squeri had the brilliant idea of developing a large mill. ‘Basically, we do the same thing today as the Italian housewives did back then, only on a much larger scale,’ says Alessandro Squeri. Watch the video report to find out exactly how the production process works, what stories the Squeri family shares with us and what the day-to-day work of tomato farmers in the surrounding area looks like.
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