Italy: Market Statistics for 2000/2002

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Italy: Market statistics for 2000/2002

Consistently dynamic, the Italian market has seen a 19% positive increase in its trade balance over the past two seasons. The main buyers of Italian tomato products are the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

An overview of the processing industry

With more than 210 companies active in the tomato processing industry, and a potential raw material production in excess of 5 million metric tonnes, Italy has ranked first among European processors for several years, and second in the world after California. However, this undeniable stability hides some deep changes in the Italian industry, in line with trends that, for the past few years, have been affecting the tomato industry at the European level, if not worldwide. The following diagram illustrates the volumes that have been processed in Italy in the past six years, with a noticeably marked increase of high added-value products (juice, sauces, ketchup, etc.), unlike basic commodities like paste, which only accounts for 42% of the processing total (quoted for 2002) against more than 50% in 1997. This rerouting of raw material production quantities towards more profitable sectors of the market is estimated to have risen from 22% of the total in 1997 to close on 33% in 2002. It has also detrimentally affected peeled tomatoes, though to a lesser extent, as they are just hanging on at 25% of the Italian processing potential.

Market evolution

Over the past seven years, the trade in Italian tomato products has grown continuously (except for a slight drop in 1997/1998). Since 1995/1996, overall export volumes have increased 40%, from 1.11 million metric tonnes to 1.56 million tonnes in 2001/2002. In the case of the last financial year, export volumes represent approximately 4 million tonnes of raw tomato equivalent, accounting for almost 84% of the Italian production of raw material recorded in 2001.

Between 1995 and 2001, imports have also progressed, but only by 18%, with the result that the trade balance has grown positively by more than 42% between 1995/96 and 2001/02.

Despite suffering from the economic crisis since 1999, the Italian industry has remained dynamic and shines by its international trade results. The growth rate of the trade balance, after slowing slightly in 2000/2001 (a mere 11% compared with the previous marketing year), grew to 19% in 2001/2002.

Volumes

According to official EC processing figures, Italian processors handled more than 4.85 million tonnes of tomatoes in 2001. In terms of finished product, paste ranks last, with less than 397000 tonnes produced. In second place, peeled tomatoes account for a third of the overall total tonnage, with 721000 tonnes produced. Other products account for half of the total production volume, with 1.07 million metric tonnes of purée, sauces and ketchup in 2001.

Italian exports of tomato paste reached 1.56 million tonnes in 2001/2002. Paste sales (double and triple concentrated) broke another record, with close on 477000 tonnes exported (see details in our new Customs statistics section on pages X and Y). This figure is noticeably higher than production results for the same year, a fact that is easily explained by inventory movements (approximately 89000 tonnes of total stock in Italy on June 14th, 2001) and import volumes (114000 tonnes imported into Italy between July 2001 and June 2002).

Despite fairly sharp annual variations, linked to the situation of the international market, the export segment of the industry has grown regularly over the past seven years. In 2001/2002, this increase reached 13% compared with the previous year (421000 tonnes exported in 2000/2001) and places paste in second place among Italian sales of tomato products.

Peeled tomatoes are the main driver of the Italian export market, with sales reaching 873000 tonnes in 2001/2002. Despite a slight fall compared to the previous marketing year (885000 tonnes exported in 2000/2001), this result also demonstrates a regular growth pattern since 1995/1996 (+ 21% in seven years). This volume is once again vastly higher to the production of the same year: available stocks in June 2001 (more than 300000 tonnes, sold and unsold) are sufficient to account for the capacity of the Italian industry in meeting demand, with imports of peeled tomatoes being virtually nil (2165 tones imported in 2001/2002).

Tomato purée and sauces only account for respectively 10% and 3.5% of export volumes, but they are regularly increasing in volume, according to the general trend. However, it is noticeable that the proportion of each type of product, compared to the overall export total, varies considerably: canned products tend to drop, while purées and pastes tend to increase. The ketchup and sauces segment remains level.

Destinations

Overall, the share of exports toward European countries reaches 67% of the total (including 60% for EU countries alone). This figure marks a sharp drop compared to previous year results, when European countries accounted for more than 70% of Italian exports. African countries remain the second most important outlet for Italian tomato products, mainly because of their high demand for tomato paste (193000 tonnes in 2001/2002, more than 99% of which is double concentrated paste).

For all products, Europe remains the first outlet for the Italian tomato industry, mostly for reasons of geographical proximity. In its largest sense, Europe absorbed 248000 tonnes of Italian paste in 2001/2002, 52% of total paste exports. Over the last three marketing years, European countries all together absorbed 92% of the sales of Italian tomato purée (134000 tonnes on average per year), as well as 71% of the sales of peeled tomatoes (612000 tonnes on average per year) and 89% of exports of sauces and ketchup (44500 tonnes on average per year).

In this respect, the example of peeled tomatoes is representative of the privileged export destinations of Italian products. Over the past four years, North America has imported approximately 10% of the Italian production, with the Middle East only importing 2%. Within the European continent, the main outlets are the United Kingdom (27% of the total, with 229000 tonnes), Germany (15.5%, with 131000 tonnes) and France (7.9%, with 67000 tonnes). It should be stressed that these destinations, in addition to Belgium and the Netherlands, have been generally stagnant in terms of import volumes over the past four or five years, and in certain cases, dropped slightly in 2001/2002 after a peak in 2000/2001: this can be seen as a consequence of efforts undertaken by Italian processors to sell off the production from the record season of 1999, in the context of depreciating market rates since then (hence their attractiveness to buyers).

The current season

Finally, it is noticeable that in the first four months of the current season (2002/2003), Italian exports have already reached 611000 metric tonnes (all products included), a growth rate of almost 10% compared to the same period last year (July to October 2001). Despite the difficulty of taking account of seasonal variations, it can be stated that all the products have increased at this stage: with 174000 tonnes exported, paste has increased 7.5% compared to July-October 2001 (162200 tonnes), and purées have increased 20% (63200 tonnes compared to 52300 tonnes in 2001). Peeled tomatoes have increased less dramatically (+ 6.8% with 364000 tonnes compared with 324600 in 2001). Sauces have undergone a real explosion for the period considered, increasing by more than 58% to 26700 tonnes from July to October 2002, against 16900 for the same four month period in 2001.