Polpa Fine: The perfect tomato sauce for the gastronomy

Capricious weather in Emilia-Romagna

The sky is black. A moment ago, the sun was blazing brightly over the Piacenza region. Now fierce gusts are whirling up the dusty soil of the tomato fields, lightning flashes in the firmament within sight. Just like the weather on this scorching hot August day, tomato farmer Cesare Malvicini's mood has changed in the blink of an eye. Usually in a joking mood, the 43-year-old is now routinely giving instructions to his people in the field, steering the tractor even more quickly through the rows of plants to bring in the last tomatoes before the storm pours down and hail possibly destroys the harvest.

Millions of tomatoes for the catering industry

From July to September, the harvest is in full swing. Farmers like Cesare Malvicini transport the red berries by the lorryload to the production site of Steriltom, a traditional tomato processing company that has been in family hands for 90 years. The factory site is larger than the village in which it is located; 1000 employees work here during the harvest season and 120 lorries deliver their loads every day. At 25 tonnes per trailer and 15 tomatoes per kilo, that's a rough estimate of 45 million tomatoes a day. Hardly imaginable dimensions.

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.

Advantages of bag-in-box packaging

Another speciality: the so-called bag-in-box packaging, a sterile bag in a carton. The packs in gastro sizes not only preserve the flavour much better than conventional tins. They are also quicker and easier to open, easier to pour out and reseal and, compared to metal cans, pose hardly any risk of injury. The square shape is also much easier to stack, which saves time during transport and space in the kitchen. And as the box and bag are foldable, they also take up less space in the bin when used. The products are available in different degrees of fineness of the tomato pieces - depending on the intended use in the kitchen.

Family tradition and passion

Speaking of the kitchen. Tomato farmer Cesare Malvicini's mother Elisabetta, 72, and sister Paola, 48, are in charge. During the harvest break at lunchtime that day, they serve (no surprise) tomato salad with plenty of salami and ham, as well as pasta with (also no surprise) tomato sauce. The sun is now shining again from the bright blue sky and Cesare Malvicini is winking cheerfully again. While sister Paola insists that everyone tuck in, he enthuses about life as a farmer: "I've never done anything else. It fulfils me to always be out in nature." Pinky, the family's tame magpie, flutters over, surrounded by dozens of chickens, three dogs and four cats scurrying around the farm. It's a family affair, even with the Steriltom owner family Squeri. The contact has existed for generations, "more of a friendship than a working relationship," says Malvicini. And capers like the sudden storm? "That's the great thing," says the farmer. "Every season and every season is different." What remains the same? Malvicini doesn't think twice: "La Passione" - the passion for tomatoes.