San Marzano

The San Marzano tomato is known and appreciated all over the world for its characteristics, which are enhanced by the transformation into "peeled". The presence of a series of concomitant factors such as: the Mediterranean climate and the extremely fertile soil with an excellent structure, the ability and experience acquired by the farmers of the production area over the decades, has contributed to its success in the world , crowned, in 1996, by the recognition of the European Union as D.O.P. The intrinsic characteristics that have exalted the product, thus favoring its knowledge and consumption are: typically sweet and sour flavour, elongated shape of the berry with parallel longitudinal depressions, bright red colour, few seeds and placental fibres, red skin alive and easy to peel. These, together with the chemical-physical characteristics, make it unmistakable, both fresh and transformed. The protected designation of origin exclusively designates the "peeled" product and the "peeled in fillets" type, coming from the processing of fruits belonging to the San Marzano ecotype or to improved lines of it (the specification identifies two product standards). 

The product released for consumption must have precise technological characteristics: uniform red color with a/b colorimetric ratio of not less than 2.2; elongated and parallelepiped shape, with a length of 60 to 80 millimeters; absence of extraneous tastes and smells; weight of the drained product not less than 65% of the net weight; refractometric residual not less than 4%; pH between 4.2 and 4.5. The addition of salt (max 3% of net weight), basil leaves, semi-concentrated tomato juice (but exclusively from San Marzano) is permitted. The cultivation technique of the fresh product foresees the vertical type cultivation of the plants with the use of supports, thus respecting the secular tradition, even if, due to the high number of hours of labor required, this technique strongly affects the production costs.