‘Italian’ purees likely to contain Chinese forced-labour tomatoes, BBC finds

Mike Rudin & Sarah Buckley

BBC Eye Investigations

Getty Images Hands picking a bright red tomato off a vine

“Italian” tomato purees sold by several UK supermarkets appear to contain tomatoes grown and picked in China using forced labour, the BBC has found.

Some have “Italian” in their name such as Tesco’s “Italian Tomato Purée”. Others have “Italian” in their description, such as Asda’s double concentrate which says it contains “Puréed Italian grown tomatoes” – and Waitrose’s “Essential Tomato Purée”, describing itself as “Italian tomato puree”.

A total of 17 products, most of them own-brands sold in UK and German retailers, are likely to contain Chinese tomatoes – testing commissioned by the BBC World Service shows.

Most Chinese tomatoes come from the Xinjiang region, where their production is linked to forced labour by Uyghur and other largely Muslim minorities. The UN accuses the Chinese state – which views these minorities as a security risk – of torture and abuse. China denies it forces people to work in the tomato industry and says workers’ rights are protected by law. It says the UN report is based on “disinformation and lies”.

All the supermarkets whose products we tested dispute our findings.

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