Italy has overtaken China and is once again the world’s second-largest tomato-processing country, after the United States. This overtake has been validated by the association representing Italy's peeled and preserved tomato producers, who announced the final data for the 2025 Italian tomato season yesterday. With 78,695 hectares cultivated, production reached 5.8 million tons of tomatoes — about 10% less than expected due to too much or too little rain, depending on the region — but still enough to surpass China’s results. Beijing had pushed strongly in recent years, increasing canned tomato production by 40% between 2023 and 2024 and by 68% the previous year. Then, after surpassing 10 million tons last year, China's rapid expansion stalled due to difficulty entering international markets. Consequently, in 2025, Beijing implemented a 50% decrease in production. This allowed Italy to reclaim its position as the world's largest tomato exporter not just in terms of value (which it had maintained for some time), but also by volume.