Aseptic Tomato Paste in Drums (28-30% and 36-38% Brix, Hot Break & Cold Break)

Industrial paste in 220 L aseptic bag-in-drum and bins, bought on Brix, break, Bostwick and mould count

Industrial tomato paste is a concentrate sold by the drum to the plants that turn it into ketchup, pizza and pasta sauce, soup, beverages and retail tins, and it is bought on five numbers before the price is discussed. Brix, the natural total soluble solids, sets the concentration: Codex CXS 57-1981 calls a concentrate paste from 24% upward and puree from 7% to under 24%, and the industrial trade runs on two bands, 28-30% and 36-38%. The break sets the texture. Hot break paste is made by heating the crushed fruit at around 85-102 °C, which fully inactivates the pectin-degrading enzymes and gives a thick paste for ketchup and pizza sauce; cold break runs below 70 °C, keeps a brighter colour and fresher flavour at a lower viscosity, and goes into juice, soups and diluted products. Consistency is read on the Bostwick consistometer in centimetres of flow in 30 seconds on a diluted sample, where a lower number means a thicker paste. Colour is read as the Hunter a/b ratio, and producer specification sheets for 36-38% cold break commonly state a/b above 2.1, Bostwick 6-9 cm, lycopene above 50 mg/100 g and pH 4.2 ± 0.2, so the contract names its own figures rather than the band alone. Mould is counted by the Howard method (AOAC 965.41); the US FDA defect action level for tomato paste and puree is an average of 45% positive fields or more across six subsamples with every subsample above 40%, and buyers write a tighter Howard limit into the specification. UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations under HS 2002.90 total USD 5.17 billion and about 3.44 million MT across 108 reporters: Italy USD 1.44 billion and 809,300 MT at an average USD 1,775/MT, China USD 1.20 billion and 1,196,600 MT at USD 1,005, Spain USD 510 million, the USA USD 422 million and 420,400 MT at USD 1,005, Portugal USD 380 million and 230,700 MT at USD 1,649, Chile USD 262 million and 175,900 MT at USD 1,489, and Türkiye USD 233 million and 177,100 MT at USD 1,318. Those are declared averages across the code, not offers.

The buyer is a sauce, ketchup or soup manufacturer, a retail-pack plant that dilutes and re-packs paste into tins and sachets, or an ingredients distributor. Crop timing drives the offer: northern hemisphere factories process from July to September, and the World Processing Tomato Council's 11 September 2026 update puts the 2026 world crop at 39.1 million MT against 40.4 million MT processed in 2025, with China at 5.15 million MT, Spain at 2.6 million MT and Türkiye at 2.2 million MT, Italy forecast at 6.35 million MT and California at 10.0 million short tons in the 28 August update; Chile is the southern hemisphere's largest processor, harvesting from late January to early April, so new-crop Chilean paste arrives off-season. Chinese paste is questioned on origin because most of China's processing tomato area is in Xinjiang: under the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, in force since 21 June 2022, goods made wholly or partly in Xinjiang are presumed made with forced labour and are detained by US Customs and Border Protection unless the importer rebuts it, tomatoes are a named high-priority sector, the presumption reaches sauces and canned tomatoes made in other countries from Xinjiang paste, and tomato-paste producers were among the 29 entities added to the UFLPA Entity List in November 2024. The EU Forced Labour Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 applies from 14 December 2027 and has no regional presumption, but lets authorities ban forced-labour products from the EU market and from export. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and offers Chinese paste for US and EU destinations only with the producing plant and growing region named and traceability documents to the field. Every lot moves against the producer's certificate of analysis, a health certificate from the origin authority, a certificate of origin, a halal certificate where the destination requires it, and residue results against EU maximum residue levels under Regulation (EC) 396/2005 for EU-bound paste, in 220 L aseptic bags in steel drums of about 235-245 kg net, four to a pallet, or 1,000 L+ aseptic bins, in 20-ft dry containers on FOB, CFR and CIF terms. Price is set per lot on Brix, break, crop year and origin; send the Brix, break, Bostwick and colour floor, mould limit, pack, volume and discharge port.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.