French or Moroccan tomatoes? Price, quality, taste … Here’s how to decide between them

Moroccan or French tomatoes, which ones to choose? If each year, the two varieties are on the stalls, and in particular 400,000 tonnes of imported Moroccan tomatoes, when choosing, consumers have their criteria. The price comes first and the difference goes from simple to triple.

On the shelf, first observation: the provenance is not always clearly indicated. You often have to find out to find it. The 250 gr of Moroccan cherry tomatoes sell at 0.99 cent, half cheaper than their tricolor equivalent. A gap that makes French farmers blush with anger. “The cost of tomato is between 40 and 60% of the workforce”explains Jean-Philippe Briand, tomato producer JPL Provence. According to the producer, “An hour of labor (in France) is 15 euros per hour, we are one euro per hour in Morocco”.

A cheap workforce, on which Morocco, the third world exporter of tomatoes, has built a huge business. Representatives of the sector acknowledge taking advantage of “Conditions of heat, humidity, and light especially to produce during the winter”As Mohammed Zahidi, former tomato producer and co-organizer of Moroccoco Tomato Conference explains.

For scientists, tomato is the fruit of a flower, but for cooks, it is classified as a vegetable. In France, a family consumes more than 14 kg per year, the equivalent of 140 cluster tomatoes. And one in three is imported.

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