Although tomatoes originally come from South America, they became more popular in European households in the 18th century. This is how the fruit found its way to South Africa. South Africans enjoy this round red fruit in various ways: fried, bottled, or just in a salad. The fact that South Africa is the only country that can harvest tomatoes year-round means that we really love our tomatoes, especially our All Gold tomato sauce.

Not just any tomato is used in your bottle of All Gold either. At their processing plant in Musina, the tomatoes for All Gold tomato sauce are handpicked.

In this series, we discussed the All Gold tomato sauce process from seed to table. In the last part of this series, we focus on the processing and packaging of this beloved sauce.

Fresh from the farm

Once a farmer has harvested his tomatoes, they are loaded into containers on a truck and taken to the Musina tomato processing plant. Here, the tomatoes must first go through a selection process before they are accepted. The plant first opened its doors in 1987 and originally belonged to the Langeberg group. The plant was used for canning Koo beans, spaghetti, beet, jam and sweetcorn. Tiger Brands took over the plant in 1993 and converted it into a tomato paste plant.

This plant produces enough tomato paste from April to September every year to make the famous All Gold tomato sauce. It takes 1 000 tonnes of tomatoes to make three to four drums of tomato paste, and the Musina plant processes 3 000 tonnes of tomatoes per week.
The first step in the process is to test the tomatoes. Before the farmer can unload his crop, the tomatoes’ Brix content is first tested. Brix is the scale in which sugar content is displayed. All Gold tomato sauce’s ideal Brix is 5, but depending on growing conditions on the farm, the plant will accept tomatoes with a Brix of 3,9 to 5,5.

The next step is the most important – grading the tomatoes. This is where the farmer will find out if his tomatoes have made the cut.
A random container full of tomatoes is chosen from the truck. The tomatoes are then thrown into a sorting machine which lets only certain number of tomatoes fall through. This is to ensure that the good or bad tomatoes cannot be picked out by the plant’s staff. The tomatoes that fall out of the machine are then carefully examined to see if there are any abnormalities.

When a load of tomatoes is accepted, it can be unloaded.

During this process they look at:

•The size of the tomato; it must be larger than 30 mm
•Rotting on any part of the tomato
•Insects or plant diseases on the tomato
•Any fungus found on the tomato
•Whether there are stems and leaves among the tomatoes
•Whether the tomatoes are ripe enough
•Whether the tomatoes have sunburn

This process is the make-or-break moment for the farmer. The number of tomatoes that pass the test determines whether the entire shipment will be accepted or rejected. If the tomatoes are rejected, the farmer is sent back home with his load of tomatoes. When the tomatoes are accepted, the truck is weighed, and the farmer can unload his crop. The empty containers are sent back and the weight and quality of the tomato load determines how much the farmer is paid.

Here comes the sauce

It is ideal to process the tomatoes as soon as they are unloaded, but if the factory has a backlog, they can store the tomatoes for 72 hours before they begin to deteriorate. The first step is to wash the tomatoes. Here they ensure that all the soil and other foreign materials are washed from the tomatoes. After the tomatoes have gone through a second washing process, they are finely ground. The next step is the cooking process. Here the tomatoes are cooked and softened to be transported to the pulper. The pulper squeezes all the juice and flesh out of the tomatoes, leaving only the skin behind. The meat and juice go to an evaporator that takes out all the water and leaves only a tomato paste.

To ensure the paste is safe for human consumption, it is sterilised before being packed into drums to be transported to the bottling plant.

Put it in a bottle

The Tiger Brands bottling plant where All Gold ketchup is bottled is in Johannesburg. This plant first opened its doors in 2003 and here they bottle the 350 ml and the 700 ml All Gold Original tomato sauce. The plant bottles about 4,2 million bottles of All Gold tomato sauce per month. As soon as the tomato paste arrives at the bottling plant it is tested to ensure that it is up to All Gold’s standard. The paste is then transformed into tomato sauce, the sauce is boiled, and the boiling hot sauce is injected into brand new glass bottles. Once the bottles are full, they are pasteurised and decorated with the red labels. Now the tomato sauce is ready to be transported to warehouses around the country and to be distributed so you can go and buy it in the store.

All Gold constantly tests their tomato sauce to ensure that it is safe and tastes great. Tiger Brand strives to promote the affordability and quality of their products. They want to keep their products as acceptable and affordable as possible, and still drive their company forward, sustainably. They have proven this by expanding their All Gold portfolio and adding several flavours of sauce to the All Gold brand, as well as the launch of their 500 ml squeeze bottle.

How long does it take from seed to table?

From the time the tomato seed is sown to the production of an adult seedling takes about 35 days. From the time the seedling is planted until the tomato is harvested takes about 100 days. The harvesting of the tomatoes and the transport and delivery to the tomato processing plant takes about two days. The Tiger Brands factory processes the fresh tomatoes into a paste in 12 hours and the cooling process takes another 12 hours.

If the paste is transported to the bottling plant immediately without being stored first, the paste will arrive at the plant in one day. Tomatoes supplied from the Lutzville area follow the same process, with the exception that it takes eight weeks for the seeds to grow into mature seedlings because it is sown in winter.

All that remains is the answer to the long-standing question? Should you refrigerate your All Gold tomato sauce? Well, the answer is yes. The sauce must be stored in a dry, cool place and once it has been opened it must go to the fridge.