Whether there are 36 tomatoes in a bottle of All Gold tomato sauce or more, no one can argue that this sauce improves most types of food. On top of your chips or as part of your sauce, in South Africa everyone on every corner and street knows what All Gold tomato sauce is. All Gold is a product of Tiger Brands, whose first consideration is quality.

Tiger Brands is one of the biggest names in South Africa’s tomato industry. Their tomatoes are mainly grown in Musina in Limpopo and Lutzville in the Western Cape.

They have two processing plants; one in Musina and one in Lutzville. Here the tomatoes are transformed into the sought-after tomato sauce before being taken to Tiger Brands’ factory in Boksburg for packaging.

108 farmers grow tomatoes in Musina for Tiger Brands; 38 commercial farmers and 70 small-scale farmers. These 108 farmers provide work to 600 permanent workers and 4 000 seasonal workers.

In Lutzville, 58 farmers are contracted under Tiger Brands, and of these 50 are commercial farmers and eight are small-scale farmers.

Being a farmer for Tiger Brands means that you only deliver the best quality tomatoes. Of course, it all starts with the seeds. This is where Riverside Nursery in Musina comes in.

Because All Gold tomato sauce is only made from certain tomato cultivars, Tiger Brands supplies the seeds to Riverside Nursery, which supplies seedlings to the Tiger Brands farmers.

Riverside plants the seeds in polystyrene planting trays with a mixture of bark and TS1 substrate to germinate. 242 seeds are planted per tray. Riverside Nursery uses a planting machine that plants the seed accurately and evenly. The seed trays are taken to the germination room where the temperature is kept between 23 and 26 degrees. It takes between 24 and 36 hours for the tomato seeds to germinate, and then they are moved out to the nursery.

About 28 to 32 days later, the seedlings are sent to the farmers. The seedlings are treated to ensure they are disease free when they go to the farmer.

Sipho Modiba, Agricultural Manager of Tiger Brands, says they have tried natural products before, but that the chemical programme they use has been tested to be safe for the plants and the consumer. They also try to make these seedlings as hardy as possible so that they will thrive when planted out on the farms. This means there is no special corner against the wind and weather, but these seedlings defy the elements from day one.

Here in the nursery, they are already looking at the tomatoes’ brix content. All Gold tomato sauce is only made from tomatoes with a brix content between 5 and 5,5.

The perfect height for the seedlings to go to the farmers is about 15 cm. If they are too small, they will die when they are transplanted, and if they are too big, they will also have to die and start growing again. At 15 cm, the root is large enough to establish itself in the soil, but the plant is not too large that the stress will kill it.

Riverside is one of five nurseries used by Tiger Brands and farmers can choose which nursery they would like to get their seedlings from.

The seed for All Gold was planted in 1908 when the Scottish chemist, John Semble, brought the unique recipe to South Africa. Originally, the product was produced by placing muslin bags with herbs and spices in jars of freshly pressed ripe tomatoes. It later became so popular that mass production for All Gold tomato sauce began in 1959.

By 1985, Tiger Brands had already sold 250 million bottles of tomato sauce and in 1992 they won a gold award at the Monde Quality Awards in Belgium. The following year they also introduced the All Gold Light and All Gold Spicy versions, and later in 2000 they put the Pasta Pronto ready-to-eat sauces on the shelves.

In the next few issues, we shall discuss the planting process, manufacturing process and packaging.