In Campania and Southern Italy more generally, this is tomato harvest time. Let’s see how Ciao – Il Pomodoro di Napoli keeps a tradition going that is almost a summer rite of passage.
Harvest time
Harvesting of long tomatoes typically lasts in Campania from late July until the first half of September, depending on weather and fruit ripening conditions.
This year, as we told you previously, our tomatoes took a few more weeks to become red, pulpy and firm as Ciao tomatoes always are at harvest time.
It is necessary to wait for the perfect point of ripeness before the canning process can begin. This is the only way to bring to the table a product that retains all the flavor of summer.
Harvesting was done exclusively by hand until a few years ago. Today the manual procedure is slowly being supplanted by the mechanical one, which is not only faster, but also more efficient.
The harvesting machines are equipped with cleaning systems and optical sorters that enable an initial screening directly in the field, cleaning vegetables of soil impurities and discarding the tomatoes that in size and ripeness do not meet the strict standards of Ciao – Il Pomodoro di Napoli.
Our factories
Once harvested, the tomato arrives at our factories where it will remain for a few hours: just enough to note the harvest time and the source cooperative of each batch, so as to ensure the perfect traceability of the product.
In the 6/7 hours that separate the tomato from the start of the canning process, various controls will be carried out, such as sampling, or the first chemical analyses that, by taking and analyzing sample quantities of the product, will ensure that only tomatoes that are perfect in shape and color and the health of the fruit will arrive at the peelers.
Only after these steps can the acceptance of each harvested load be completed, guaranteeing its suitability to enter the production process of Ciao – Il Pomodoro di Napoli.
In our manufacturing process, tradition and technology are not in conflict, but work side by side to achieve excellence!