Whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes

Just a few years ago they were facing extinction – barely anyone still grew the San Marzano tomato variety. It has since experienced a renaissance and is once again thriving in the fertile soil at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, not least due to the involvement of the slow food movement. This special terroir coupled with a maritime-influenced climate have a clear influence on the tomato’s unmistakable aromatic flavour, which really begins to develop in the tin. We believe this is one of the best ways to capture summer.

The San Marzano tomato – the Queen of the Tomato Family   

These elongated, firm tomatoes with a thick skin and few seeds have always been native inhabitants of Campania, Italy. The skin can be peeled away easily, the flesh-to-juice and sweet-to-sour ratios are harmonious and intense. They have an almost bitter-sweet flavour and we and many other connoisseurs agree that they make the absolute best tomato sauce. A tinned food industry has developed in Campania, following a similar model to that major Italian brand Cirio, that successfully exports tinned San Marzano tomatoes worldwide. Although flavour and firmness were beyond dispute, the fruits always had to be (and still have to be today) harvested by hand several times between July and September. As a result of this, the industry resorted to more robust hybrid varieties in the 1970s as these could be cultivated and harvested mechanically. Besides, the variety was struck down by a virus during this period. The San Marzano tomato, once the pride and joy of Campanian farmers, threatened to sink into oblivion. It wasn’t until almost 20 years later that the slow food movement remembered that these variety of tomatoes once existed. At the Cirio research centre, old seeds from two of the more resistant varieties had been preserved and were sown once more. In 1996, the San Marzano variety was awarded a PDO seal of quality from the EU for the Agro Sarnese Nocerino region in the provinces of Naples, where the tomatoes grow in volcanic soil near the sea. The PDO is linked to a consortium, however not all farmers cooperate with this association, which is why you can find both PDO tomatoes and tins without the PDO label.