The tomato supply chain
The journey of a tomato
La Doria is among the leading Italian producers of tomato-based products and is the leading European producer of peeled and chopped tomatoes in the retail sector.
The company has been working closely with the agricultural base for more than sixty years to attain this position, establishing a true partnership built on support and continuous dialogue that begins right from the supply of the seeds.
The tomato is closely monitored at all stages of the supply chain, leaving nothing to chance and thus ensuring full traceability of the product from the ground to the shelf.
3000 hectares of Italian land
20 producer associations
350 farms
5 regions
32% long tomato
66% round tomato
2% cherry tomato
100% ITALIAN
Tomato-based products are today considered an area of major excellence for the Italian food industry. They play a driving role in the domestic economy and particularly in Southern Italy, where the majority of cultivators are based. The climatic and territorial characteristics of some regions, including Campania, are unique in the world, reflecting this uniqueness in the organoleptic and nutritional characteristics of the tomato itself.
The tomatoes, the heart of the company’s production, are grown entirely in Italy: only the best varieties of 100% Italian, non-genetically modified tomatoes are selected, which – thanks to the geographical proximity between the plant and the growing fields – are processed immediately after harvesting, preserving their nutritional values.
100% TRACED
For the tomato category, La Doria directly deals with the Agricultural Producer Organisations in the area. It can therefore closely follow all phases of cultivation, from planting to transplanting, ensuring the quality and sustainability of the process. Each and every tomato field, the Agricultural Production Unit (APU), is geo-tagged through a GPS system.
Alongside the growing of fruit, La Doria also provides agronomic advisory services on the use of phytosanitary treatments or the responsible use of agro-pharmaceuticals, used only when strictly necessary.
The close collaboration with agricultural suppliers does not end here. A data set is in fact also collected during the actual cultivation of the plants and fruit.
The freshly harvested tomatoes arrive at the factories, where they undergo further quality control before beginning processing. Each lot is linked to a Transport Document containing all the information gathered up to that point; Using the associated code, every movement within the facility can be mapped, ensuring the maximum traceability of every tomato and its characteristics.
The ISO 22005 quality certification underscores La Doria’s transparency to the market through its ability to reconstruct, at any time and quickly, the history of the certified product.
100% SUSTAINABLE
In terms of social sustainability, The Group is committed to improving the working conditions of both the people who work at its production sites and the people who work during the fruit and vegetable harvesting campaigns and throughout the tomato supply chain through monitoring activities and specific ethical audits.
Starting in 2014, La Doria, with the support of a leading consulting firm, introduced a system for monitoring ethical risks in the tomato supply chain with a focus on working conditions. The checks are mainly aimed at verifying:
- the working conditions of suppliers, to ascertain compliance with health and safety regulations.
- labour contracts and salary payments, to ascertain the absence of undeclared labour.
- the absence of any form of child labour.
The environmental and ethical sustainability of cultivation is pursued through the introduction of specific educational projects involving the agricultural base on relevant issues such as reducing water consumption or increasing the number of bees essential for pollination.
Our Friend of the Earth certification highlights our commitment to safeguarding and protecting the entire ecosystem (wildlife, soil, and water resources) through the non-use of hazardous substances, responsible waste and energy management, and social responsibility throughout the supply chain.
In 2022, La Doria successfully achieved a new certification, the Social Footprint.
Thanks to this certification we can share information about the social impact of our fresh tomatoes with all stakeholders.
The Social Footprint is just the latest of the activities that the La Doria Group has put in place to certify the production of its tomatoes, providing consumers with a true identity card of its “red line”.
