Quality and traceability
These are necessary to meet demand. Steriltom produces - from small farmers like Malvicini - on a large scale. METRO has been working with the family business since 1990. Common Sourcing (centralised purchasing) currently procures 23 different tomato products for more than 20 METRO countries for the METRO Chef and Aro own brands. Pizza sauce, passata, and above all: Polpa Fine. The basic sauce for a number of dishes consists of 70 per cent tomato pieces and 30 per cent juice. And only the best fruit is used. Yellow or overripe tomatoes are sorted out by the quality assurance department, using automated processes and trained employees who check the conveyor belts quickly. Two in-house laboratories carry out more than 3,000 analyses per day to check the pH value, colour and other parameters.
In less than 24 hours, the tomato becomes a polpa. Thanks to the short distances - on average 40 kilometres separate the field and the factory - it often takes less than three hours from picking to processing. All packaged products are given a scannable code so that customers can trace "their" polpa from the shelf in the METRO wholesale store to the individual farmer, right back to the seeds used. Which, by the way, must not be genetically modified for Steriltom suppliers.
Tradition and innovation at Steriltom
"What sets us apart is our expertise - the combination of culinary tradition, the knowledge of cultivation, varieties and selection accumulated over generations, and the company's specialisation," says Alessandro Squeri, who took over the business from his father Dario. Steriltom focuses purely on the production of Polpa Fine and pizza sauce for the food service sector. This goes back to an idea from Alessandro Squeri's grandfather Carlo: back in the 1930s, ready-made polpa fine was not available to buy, explains the grandson. "The Italian mammas chopped up whole peeled tomatoes by hand or with a small grinder. My grandfather had the idea of building a large mill modelled on my grandmother's technology. We basically do what the Italian mammas did and do, only on a larger scale." Grandpa Carlo's success proves him right to this day. In contrast to other manufacturers who cook the tomatoes to dehydrate them, Steriltom uses a cold processing system; the already chopped tomatoes pass through a vibrating filter that separates the pieces of fruit from the liquid. "A kind of large pasta sieve," explains Alessandro Squeri. This preserves the freshness and sensory properties that would be lost if the tomatoes were heated.