Tomato Paste
Tomato paste is concentrated tomato, produced by extracting the juice from ripe fruit and evaporating water until the soluble solids reach a declared level. It contains nothing but tomato and, in some grades, salt, and it exists because fresh tomato is seasonal, perishable and mostly water, while paste can be shipped and stored for a year and reconstituted wherever it is needed.
Concentration is quoted as natural tomato soluble solids, measured on the refractometer and expressed in degrees Brix. Twenty eight to thirty percent is the standard bulk trading range, with thirty six to thirty eight percent traded where freight cost dominates. The paste carries the tomato's acids, mainly citric with some malic, its sugars, its glutamate, and the carotenoid pigments, principally lycopene, that give it colour and that are more available to the body after heating than they are in the raw fruit.
The material is a thick red mass whose flow behaviour is set by its pectin. Where the enzymes that degrade pectin have been inactivated quickly it is stiff and holds its shape; where they have been allowed to act it is thinner and pours. It ships in aseptic bags inside steel drums or bins, and in cans for retail and catering.
We source bulk Tomato Paste from top China manufacturers for our partners. The manufacturers are in Gansu and Xinjiang. A smaller requirement can ship in a combined container with other ingredients.
Please send the grade you need, the volume and your destination port, and we will come back with a solution and a price.
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- Function
- Flavours and Aromas
Specifications
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Uniform red concentrated tomato paste, free from foreign matter |
| Odour and Taste | Characteristic cooked tomato, no burnt or fermented note |
| Natural Tomato Soluble Solids | 28.0 to 30.0 Brix at 20 C |
| Colour Score | Not less than 2.0 by the a over b ratio |
| Consistency | Bostwick 4.0 to 7.0 cm at 12 Brix, 20 C, 30 seconds |
| pH | 4.0 to 4.5 |
| Titratable Acidity, as Citric Acid | 2.0 to 3.5% on solids |
| Sodium Chloride | Not more than 1.0%, or absent for unsalted grades |
| Howard Mould Count | Not more than 45% positive fields |
| Black Specks | Not more than 2 per 10 g |
| Lead | Not more than 0.1 mg/kg |
| Arsenic | Not more than 0.1 mg/kg |
| Total Plate Count | Not more than 100 cfu/g |
| Yeast and Mould | Not more than 20 cfu/g |
Common Markets Grades
The first and most important distinction is between hot break and cold break paste. Hot break paste is made by heating the crushed fruit rapidly to around ninety five degrees, which destroys the pectic enzymes before they can act and leaves a high viscosity product used where body is needed, as in pizza sauce and ketchup. Cold break paste is heated only to sixty five to seventy five degrees, so the enzymes degrade the pectin and give a thinner paste with better colour and a fresher taste, used in soups, juices and products where a separate thickener is present.
Beyond break type, grades are set by concentration in degrees Brix, by colour, measured as a colour score or as a redness ratio and priced accordingly, and by consistency, quoted as a Bostwick reading at a stated dilution. Further distinctions cover packaging, with aseptic bulk bags separated from hot filled drums and cans, and processing history, since twice concentrated paste made by remanufacturing bulk material is a different article from single strength season pack. Organic certified paste is a small separate stream.
Applications
- Ketchup and tomato condiment manufacture, where paste is the principal raw material and is diluted back with vinegar, sugar and spice
- Pizza and pasta sauce production, using hot break grades for the body they contribute
- Canned and retort soups, where cold break paste provides colour and acidity without excess viscosity
- Baked bean and canned vegetable sauces, one of the largest volume outlets for bulk paste
- Ready meals, curries and prepared sauces, dosed as the tomato component of a recipe
- Meat products such as sausages and burgers, where small additions contribute colour and glutamate driven savouriness
- Snack seasonings and instant noodle sachets, after drying the paste into a powder on a carrier
- Retail catering packs sold as a cooking ingredient in cans and tubes
- Reconstitution into tomato juice, purée and chopped tomato products outside the growing season
Brands Using Tomato Paste
Widely-distributed consumer products that list Tomato Paste on the ingredient label.
- Hunt'sTomato Paste ↗Hunt's sells canned tomato paste made from vine-ripened tomatoes simmered with salt and spices.Label verified 2026-08-31
- Hunt'sTomato Paste with Basil, Garlic and Oregano ↗A seasoned version of the same tomato paste, with basil, garlic and oregano added to the paste base.Label verified 2026-08-31
Brand names, product names and logos are the property of their owners. They appear here as published evidence that the ingredient is used, taken from the brand's own label or website. Their appearance is not an endorsement, and it does not mean the brand buys from us or from any manufacturer listed on this site.
China Manufacturers of Tomato Paste
Top Tomato Paste manufacturers in China.
Bcfoods Gansu Co., Ltd.1 ingredient in the directory- Chalkis Health Industry Co., Ltd.2 ingredients in the directory
Company names and logos are the property of the manufacturers themselves. They are listed here because our own directory records them as producing this ingredient. A listing is not an endorsement by them, and we do not represent them or speak on their behalf.
Regulatory Status
Tomato paste is a food rather than a food additive, so no E number applies to the product itself, and salt is the only addition permitted in most standard grades. The European Union regulates it under general food law together with the contaminant and pesticide residue limits that apply to processed tomato products, and the compositional descriptions used in trade follow long established commercial standards rather than a single Union recipe rule.
In the United States tomato concentrates are covered by a standard of identity that defines tomato paste, tomato purée and tomato pulp by their soluble solids content and sets out the permitted optional ingredients. Federal defect action levels for mould, measured by the Howard mould count, and for insect and rot fragments apply, and the Howard count is the routine quality parameter that both regulators and buyers examine. The product is also graded voluntarily by colour, consistency and defects under Department of Agriculture grade standards. Codex maintains a standard for processed tomato concentrates covering composition, labelling and hygiene, and both the low pH of the product and its heat treatment place it outside the low acid canned food controls.
Manufacturing Process
Field ripe tomatoes are delivered to the factory within hours of picking, washed in flotation and spray washers, sorted on optical and manual lines to remove green, damaged and rotten fruit, and chopped. The crushed fruit passes immediately to the break stage, where it is heated in a tubular or scraped surface heat exchanger to the temperature that defines the grade, and this is the single decision that determines the character of the finished paste. The hot pulp goes to a train of pulpers and finishers, screens of decreasing hole size that separate skin and seed from the juice, with the finishing screen size setting the residual fibre content.
The juice is concentrated in a multiple effect forced circulation evaporator running under vacuum, so that the boiling temperature stays low and colour and flavour are preserved while water is removed to the target Brix. Concentrate is then sterilised in a final heat exchanger and cooled, and filled through a sterile filling head into a pre-sterilised aseptic bag within a drum or bin. Canned product is hot filled and retorted instead. Bulk paste is held at ambient temperature and drawn down through the year by remanufacturing plants, which reheat, dilute and reformulate it into finished products.
