I grew up in program in the south of france. The region is known for the high quality of its tomatoes. One day i learned something that shocked me. Look the crown jewel of french tomato sauce had been bought by a Chinese Investor you eat. He decided to produce tomato sauce from performance using tomatoes grown in china. You set out to conquer this sector. Local partners seem delighted by the deal. But i did wonder why china had suddenly decided to compete with france and italy in china tomato sauce isnt even on the menu. I speak to here is investigating the circumstances behind this new trend. I discovered different kinds of tomatoes genetically modified tomatoes which are still largely unfamiliar nearer. These are. Very firm fruit you can stop them they wont burst. I discovered a misunderstood and fascinating industry and industry from the success of italian destroyer to me. And reinvented in the United States and china by a few on top knows who turned it into what they call red gold. In california i met one of the leaders. This industry a multimillionaire obsessed with efficiency and success. In italy i saw workers exploited in africa farmers facing ruin. For the past two years ive been collecting sources juices soups concentrates peel tomatoes and catch up from around the world the story im going to tell you is not simply about the canned food its a story about the sometimes absurd nature of aa globalised world. Its womens. And its losers the women than men who feed us all without ever seeing the fruits of their labor. Workers were. Married to discover how china produces its tomatoes i have to go on a long journey. Three thousand kilometers from beijing in the west of china. To she. Added. The province was incorporated into china in one nine hundred forty nine and was long inaccessible to foreigners. It is home to a muslim group or eagles who today are a minority in xing shouting. Over time the region became populated by millions of han chinese the countrys largest ethnic group. All at the initiative of beijing. Man it is a journey back in time. Here many crops are still harvested by hand as was common in europe decades ago. You know. Their own was. Us a. Little. Bit do. So. You. Will. Do little. By saying because i miss my native region. I miss my parents so. Its the same my wife and i work far from home. My native region is in the poorest areas. Its hard to find work there. Both who moves in you know. Normal g. C. And his wife come from the sichuan region three thousand kilometers away and the equivalent of one euro cents but you know the mountains. We. Now call. My wife and i collected one hundred sixty or one hundred seventy bags between us we earn two point two renminbi per bag. Together my wife and i sometimes earn four hundred renminbi per day or sometimes less but the yield varies according to the fields. She reaches. But it. Thats the equivalent of about forty euros a day between the two of them. Only the poorest families in china are willing to do this difficult work. For us han chinese and i say this work is considered unworthy of respect but the people here do it because they have no choice so how. Many come from deep in the mountains. China is still a developing country and human. And that the way before you think. These low wages also mean low production costs. Im beginning to understand why chinese tomatoes are replacing those from france and why Chinese Workers are edging out european ones. But whose idea was it that china should become a leading tomato producer china is one of the few countries where people dont eat tomato sauce its a paradox i went to beijing in search of some answers. In that fluent suburb i met again with you youre the investor who bought the french look about norm brand. Hes one of the main players in the chinese tomato industry locally hes known as general you this is the first time hes agreed to be interviewed before a foreign camera crew. The majority will surely. Lead it was intuition you know what would it treasure to study in the global tomato industry if i proposed that china should become a major Production Base in the world should your friend your job or you could pull your should have. Today china is the worlds second largest tomato producer the countrys Market Leader is the acme food giant playgroup. The factories assistant director takes me on a tour. Five thousand tonnes of fresh tomatoes are delivered here every day. The tomatoes are then processed first the skins and seeds are removed kneading behind the pulp and juice. Then the water is removed leaving behind the tomato concentrate. In these bats that tomatoes are sterilized and turned into concentrate the red gold of this industry it takes six kilos of fresh tomatoes to make one kilo of this paste i mean honestly it was just they are. Now i know where my favorite Tomato Source comes from. Within a surprisingly short amount of time china has become a super power in the tomato industry. Thousands of tons of concentrate are exported from here to countries around the world. Only a few years you know what we sell to more than one hundred thirty countries. In europe we supply the netherlands the United Kingdom in russia. In asia we supply japan malaysia and indonesia and theres australia. Youll find our tomato concentrate all over the world i mean it is you know its all that youve done for. Hundreds of companies around the world then turn this concentrate into other tomato products. I think sauces a lot of products because he already contains. Ingredients from his factory for our fumes we are selling a lot of to u. K. To germany used to you are for sure we are tossed in i all International Big or nice rational names oh hi. You know they call me and ask her exactly so all these big names they may buy for us. The u. S. Company heinz is the biggest buyer of tomatoes in the world the Multinational Corporation is the first to have made the tomato a multibillion dollar industry. Every year heinz sells six hundred fifty million bottles of catch ups in more than one hundred forty countries. I decided to pay a visit to the very beginnings of the tomato industry in the United States. According to legend it was in this modest two story house that the entrepreneur Henry John Heinz laid the foundations of his empire. It is the story of a billionaire who started out with nothing. The story of the heinz dynasty is the american dream. I have a photo taken as a small souvenir. How did heinz become the worlds number one catch up almost one hundred fifty years ago. Henry john heinz was the first to make catch up a mass Consumer Product his slogan was our field. The world. The son of german immigrants heinz sold horseradish jam meat pickles condiments and catch up with. A puritan who was obsessed with hygiene heintz used clear glass for his bottles use this pledge of transparency and quality helped him gain the confidence of consumers. Want as a capitalist i mean it was a he was a pure terror real was all about. Money and marketing treated his people well but generally saw was he wanted to make money. In twenty thirteen the heintz company was bought by Warren Buffett for twenty three billion dollars. It was the largest takeover in the history of the ip food industry. And. The arrival of the billionaire entrepreneur was not good news for heintz employees. Certified in the uk its the end of an era in let me turn after more than one hundred years the heinz plant has sold at century old factory today hundreds of heinz employees are now out of a job. I met with some of the people who were laid off after the takeover. In leamington a town with a population of twenty eight thousand nearly one thousand people lost their jobs and the catch up giant decided to close its largest planted in north america. A year later. Half a still lot employed thats the twenty Year Service Award that you got the times yes i mean thats when a order very nice of the various wrote and then i got out of stand there but that caused. Me minton no one expected that a man whose fortune is estimated at seventy three billion dollars would close the factory couple things ive always heard was heinz will never close down people people need food and theyll never be a tornado here two thousand and ten there was a tornado in two thousand and fourteen heinz closed down so it just goes to show you that you never say never because things happen like that. I understand that they can say all they want like you know they say well it wasnt i love enough we wasted too much space it was this that was that what it comes down to is it costs them money and they dont want to pay a decent wage they want to pay third country or third world wage and it doesnt matter if you give up. Your wage in half or do thats really that theyre going to close it so anything that they come up with a union can go back and say well heres a heres a money saver right here to back were going to close. The plant produced a one hundred percent canadian tomato juice and catch up. It may sound surprising but in southern canada the climate is ideal for growing tomatoes. Since one thousand and nine heinz offered work for generations of local families. Since acquiring heintz Warren Buffett has close to five plants and cut seven thousand four hundred jobs about a quarter of the companys workforce. While factories are closing all over the world many more are opening in china. Who sold the chinese the industrial techniques to make this concentrate. Thats a question i put to new year. Oh is it youre fine you know the red industry the red industry of tomato sauce italy played the role of marco polo in fact he early equipment was offered to china by the. Armando gandolfi is the marco polo of the tomato industry. In palmer its only the gum dolphy family have been tomato merchants for three generations. Theyre one of the Worlds Largest sellers of tomato concentrate. The story started going to china because we saw it as an opportunity. My first trip to china was very interesting because i discovered a china that was completely different from the one we see today. People wearing mounts a till now fits. Very few cars. To bicycles. Short it was still an ancient china has made me feel a bit of a pioneer. Should or should be shot italian manufacturers supplied us with a quick mint from parma. Courts and they came here to provide training the twine everything was organized by the italians. Thanks to this Technology Transfer today china is the worlds leading export of this read. Nearly one Million Tonnes of concentrate leave the port of tianjin each year. One of the main destinations is its. A journey that takes weeks. In some manner thousands of tons of chinese concentrate are unloaded week in and week out. The chinese concentrate is then processed in italy. The recipe is simple. Take chinese concentrate dilute it in a little water at a pinch of salt and youre done. These cans of been exported to africa the middle east and the rest of europe. This is how we end up consuming chinese tomatoes while believing they were grown under the italian sun. Theres nothing italian here except the name and the flag so is there anything illegal here no i would say basically what youre talking about is misleading the shearers so its part of the companys response or they should all responsibility for it to try to give an image of serious or seriousness and to try not to cheat consumers by telling this looks italian is not italian. One full say amazon of spain is also one of the largest traders in tomato concentrate. Each year he buys some six hundred thousand tons of fresh tomatoes for resale in the form of concentrate. The giants of the Agro Industry trust him. One fourth the amazon travis the globe in search of the best tomato harvests. While the talons are supplied by china he prefers california. Today tomato is a red goat today. California has been growing tomatoes for many many years and growing steadily the acreage. As consumption increased. They have you know Good Technology theyve got the highest yield in the world as a country as a region. And its always a look its so its always good to know what whats going on here. This is the largest amount to field in the world tomatoes as far as the eye can see. California produces a third of the worlds tomato sauce. In these fields nothing is picked by hand its all harvested by machine. Chris rufa is the undisputed leader of the american tomato industry. His Company Morningstar produces nearly the same amount of tomato paste as all of china. The production processes in his plant have been optimized and every Single Movement has been timed down to the last second. Hundred trucks come and go every day each day they offload twenty thousand tons of fresh tomatoes yes theyre pretty Foreign Affairs before they say fifty sacks. So when i come here thats already pretty pretty much. Saving fifteen seconds per track sage the equivalent of one working day a year. Im paranoid i think we could do a lot better. And i see more detail and size a lot of things to fix a lot of things going through so i dont consider we do that well. Morningstar the fish and company very much because they have managed to reduce costs also the supply chain from the field to the trucking those finished goods for a dollar investment in a plant. To produce much more. They can produce more than six million tons of fresh tomatoes thats more than all italy. Three factories its impressive really amazing. Every hour chris rufus factory transforms more than a million kilos of tomatoes into concentrate under the supervision of only two employees and they go on going well now forty four they still get this excuse they cant pump it in this factory which has been automated to the extreme many employees have been put out of work and replaced by computers there are in a whole factory these two seasonal draws. Theyve got an issue they call they call an ecology and theres a major media out there lou that people like the plant managers. The Worlds LargestTomato Processing Company runs with only seventy workers push it. Chris ruefully likes parables for him competition on the market is like playing a five set tennis match. So if you play tennis with another person youre there youre pretty your game of the competition allows you to improve your game if youre very game you have more fun. Thats what the competitive system is all about is this is getting to that people with better ideas better processes to to expand and kindly calley those that arent the owners well that maybe they should do something out of a vision play tennis maybe they should take up golf versus money the biggest players in the tomato industry are in fierce competition the United States its only and china. In the war over profits it seems anything goes my next stop is changing. Its home to one of the because chinese exports of tomato products. Thank. You thank you thank. Managing director Meaghan Young gives me a tool. So far nothing seems out of the ordinary. Even not even moving i dont know heres a seventy gram can of tomato concentrate for you our machine can produce three hundred cans per minute every day a machine can produce two containers you know. The first surprise greets me in the warehouse. The branding gina and the design seems strangely familiar. Shes genos chinese cousin the famous brand produced in italy which actually contains chinese tomato concentrate. To keep up with the competition chinese produces a packaging that concentrate in cans decorated with italian labels and the colors of italy. Its likely that we consume chinese tomatoes far more often than we realize. What. You know our main markets are in the middle east and africa issue of little but also supply some countries in europe such as germany and sweden. Yeah. The factory has a secret weapon in this trade war against italy one the director prefer to leave a mention. Of white substance is added to the tomato sauce in large quantities. This ingredient does not appear on the label. Our interpreter asked the director what it is even of a duck dont you are you. Going on weekend at all i cant answer that for this is a recipe i cant talk about it not in us the way. It would or i wouldnt know it all right we can talk about it well one hundred ten are these additives are legitimate we filed our recipe with the chinese food inspection authorities we only add what is filed their. Behavior. Eighty percent of our product is tomato on the remaining twenty percent includes soybean starch and maltose are. The relative amounts very. Awkward to have up or you know what i would want the interpreter says these arent his questions theyre mine and he doesnt have to answer that senator its best if we dont talk about the substances that are added. According to my research some chinese concentrate contains up to fifty five percent additives. The additives are cheaper than tomatoes so this low with production costs. The companies that purchased chinese tomato concentrate dont seem to mind the additives. Despite this rather dubious practice the company has no de. Obtaining exports because. Only the consumer is kept in the dock. And. I was saying i must say is that these people. Are declaring that to the buyer theyre telling the buyer that were going to put so much of this in this and this. And this is the price we dont put this this is the price is the only high price but its pure too much of a stick then they at five a twenty percent five percent call or whatever that its a little the another price so the buyer knows it hes aware of it doesnt appear late. But the buyer knows it distributing companies that buy thousands of tons of chinese based in cans under the their own brands in the distributors brand in africa know that the broads will have these things and stuff like that. Come on not in western africa has more than twenty eight million residents and the growth economy. Globalization is changing eating habits here too tomatoes have become very popular. And im. Telling my way mom tasting tongue and youre making them jenny english taste the gap and soon you believe that. The secret behind delicious meals. At the local tomato market is collapsing. In recent years foreign imports of sort. So who is conquering this new market. The vendor tells us all these cans of tomato sauce come from china so theyre all georgians. I make my way to this elegant and well guarded house and find chinese tomato baron you unique and his son. Or general you came here a few months ago. He has a keen eye for a good opportunity. Tomato consumption is soaring in west africa and his presence is part of a policy that is promoted at the highest levels of the chinese government. You need to know whats in the shit which is eggs are you with that in beijing a proposal for a new silk road is under discussion should sort of rule to you and you in fact she would be the beginning of the new silk road to find the ghana is the end usually until our goal sure wont go in the future its certain that china will be the worlds superpower in the Tomato Production industry and theres no question what shall we have towards congo or transferred towards our kind used to condemn. This confident talk reflects a reality africa is fast becoming the next big market for products made in china. In this market value so those hundreds of shelves that sells tomato pickers here and the price though fifty brass at least in the markets is ninety percent chinese factories who produce. Because they have a vested so much into the machinery is thing you know way out to do it so they will produce for anybody whether is o. E. M. Whether its for their own word that they cant sell in the African Market so intel is that the chinese producers need to find a way to to digest their own excess surplus. Donna is in the midst of an economic transformation. China is relocating a part of its production line to take advantage of even cheaper labor here. Here chinese tomato perks of being processed. Oh here you go they put too much. Then. You can teach them how to do it but you cant do it for them you understand the only thing we have to do ourselves is adding these ingredients to Everything Else the workers have to do it the water was. Done in workers are paid just about a quarter of what Chinese Workers receive the equivalent of just one hundred euros a month this year in china as you go go go will you call me its not that well now you see a lot of factories shutting down moving to Southeast Asia so. Were going to again now move into indonesia malaysia those areas you see especially in that little purse business there you see a lot of pressure moving to africa cultures. But so while the first talk and the start to establish our presence was closer to the market. Can chinese tomatoes are cheaper than fresh tomatoes grown in ghana. So purchasing chinese tomatoes destroys the local market. I find in the morning hundreds of workers head to the tomato fields of southern italy. Most come from africa their journey across the mediterranean ended here. To survive they have no choice but to harvest tomatoes. Muson semen and mohammed so late man came here from sudan in search of a better life. Theyve been living here for a few years already often working under the most difficult condition. So nobody told the media. I met on libya with other migrants landed first in sicily and found how difficult it was to get work. On up this is the only work we can do thats all that and i was. Illegally without a contract but you know always off the books. At the same to level the nail. Into libya many thousands of migrants labor in the fields. Here the harvest the still done by hand. Theres no room or money for machines many come from africa up this come from india romania and bulgaria they are paid an average of twenty euros a day for ten to twelve hours of work under a blazing sun. I keep wondering man telling us about my god when i go to the supermarket and i look at a bottle of tomato sauce i think the people who buy this can or bottle have no idea what lies behind it its you want to stop this is a form of modern day slavery we die for the harvest here can be did i call. In the cause of you to be beneath you the most terrible thing i experienced was when a young man from my country called muhammad died while he was picking tomatoes right next to me. The junk i mean when i put so i guess they are going to go under by my door it was forty degrees celsius he had no water and was working too hard we dont know if i heard the cries and screams and looked up and i saw that he had fallen. And when i approached him i heard the other saying he was already dead there was nothing we could do more. In a field you cant call out an ambulance we dont have that right the right of for other people not want easy stuff. In order and also even when you think will be a morass red gold has become a nightmare. The bosses are trading in blood. Most economy i. Dont have enough money to buy more gaudy into can in my opinion the heads of the businesses are guilty. And he just so are they governments will start all. They want to love call they are all guilty of letting people work like this like slaves with no human rights. Today the layman works for various Corporate Image that produced mainly for the german market. For me tomatoes now have a bitter aftertaste taste of economic forces that concentrate profits in the hands of a few to the detriment of many. The constant demand for profit among major tomato produces has laid the groundwork for brutal labor market especially low wage countries. Global demand for tomatoes is growing by nearly three percent a year with no end in sight. If the chinese begin to consume tomato products demand will explode a prospect that new year welcomes. They will yes she and i believe that in five or six years the next generation of children who grow up eating fast food and with the rising standard of living and the pace of life in china tomato products will eventually enter the Chinese Market in korea and japan the average consumption is eight to nine kilos per person and in germany and the us ten imagine an average consumption of seven or eight kilos of tomato products in china which has a population of one point three billion thats ten billion kilos a year thats why i believe that Growth Prospects in this industry are huge a ha. Climate change. Sustainability. Environmental projects. Globalisation. Biodiversity Species Conservation exploitation the quality. Feeling right displacement. The Global Impact of local action. Global three thousand and thirty minutes on d w. As you accidentally shed some light. On the trouble. Time in the field. How can you get out. With. Oh a ceiling. Shift this week on d w. We like to think its cheaper to burn the fossil fuels that is to get the energy of the way it is the real cost of doing things is the fact of the world around us is warming up. And ultimately fifty years from now the sea levels will rise and well have the problems here in almost all coastal countries the world. Requires the governments to begin to act together to try to tax. The tax the carbon its release into the atmosphere is one of the ways of trying to slow down the use of the fossil fuels and encourage people to move to the other fuels moving to other fuels actually creates jobs it actually creates an entirely new industry. Exit polls after irelands historic referendum on abortion rights indicate the country could soon liberalize abortion restrictions projections indicate around seventy percent of voters support the measure amid high turnout a final tally is expected early on saturday. Former hollywood