Whole peeled plum tomatoes heaped on a white plate in their red juice beside a bowl of smooth passata and a small dish of dark tomato paste, with fresh plum tomatoes on the vine, a few cherry tomatoes and torn basil on a scrubbed wooden table

How to Buy Tinned Tomatoes: The Label Read Line by Line

October 1, 2026

A tin of tomatoes is one of the cheapest things in the cupboard, and its label says a good deal about what is inside before the tin is opened. Six lines decide whether a sauce starts from whole fruit or from a sieved puree, whether the pieces break down or hold their shape, and whether the two words printed largest on the front name a place or a type of tomato. Format, seal, origin, ingredients, weight, date: each moves the price and changes what happens in the pan. What follows reads them in the order they appear, with the two designations that are regulated, the phrases that only describe, and the arithmetic for price per gram of fruit. The Tinned Tomatoes and Passata complete guide covers the fruit and the factory. This is the moment of purchase.

Seven products from one fruit

Seven things called tomato come from one crop, and two legal systems describe them. Italy defines passata by decree and protects two tomatoes by designation of origin. The United States defines canned tomatoes and tomato concentrates by federal standards of identity that fix the styles, the packing media, the additives and the solids, and says nothing about where the fruit grew. The six lines below run across all seven.

Line one: the format

The first word on the label names the product. Whole peeled, pelati in Italian, is the whole fruit, skinned, packed in juice or a light puree; the San Marzano DOP rules require at least 60 percent of the drained fruit by weight to come through the peeling line whole. Fillets, filetti, are peeled fruit cut lengthwise. Chopped or pulp, polpa or pezzettoni, is peeled fruit cut with its juice. Diced is the cut the American standard names, small cubes that may be firmed with a calcium salt, of which more below. Passata is fresh fruit crushed and sieved to a smooth liquid. Under the Italian decree that defines the word it must be made directly from fresh, ripe tomatoes, never from concentrate diluted back down, and must show a refractometric residue between 5 and 12 degrees Brix once added salt is subtracted. American tomato puree is a concentrate by law, with soluble solids from 8 to under 24 percent, and paste begins at 24. A bottle labeled sugo or sauce is a different product again, already cooked with other ingredients, and a tin of diced tomatoes is cut to stay in pieces, so the format word says more than the picture.

Label word	Italian	What is in the tin	Solids	Job
Whole peeled	Pelati	Whole skinned fruit in juice or puree	As the fruit; at least 5 percent for San Marzano DOP	Long sauces, braises, anything crushed by hand
Fillets	Filetti	Peeled fruit cut lengthwise	As the fruit	Quick sauces, pizza, the pan
Chopped, pulp	Polpa, pezzettoni	Peeled fruit cut, with juice	As the fruit	Weeknight sauces, soups
Diced		Cubes, sometimes firmed with calcium salt	As the fruit	Chili, salsa, dishes that want cubes to stay cubes
Passata	Passata	Fresh fruit crushed and sieved	5 to 12 degrees Brix, salt subtracted	Smooth sauces, pizza, shakshuka
Tomato puree		American concentrate	8 to under 24 percent soluble solids	Body in soups and stews
Paste, concentrate	Concentrato	Cooked-down solids	24 percent and above under the American standard	Depth by the spoonful, browned in fat

Line two: the seal

Two protected designations matter on a tin or jar of tomatoes, and both are Campanian. Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP has been a protected designation of origin since 1996. The fruit must come from named comuni on the plain between Naples and Salerno, from the San Marzano 2 and KIROS varieties or improved lines of them, harvested by hand in stages between 15 July and 15 October, and processed inside the zone. The designation covers exactly two products, whole peeled tomatoes and filetti. There is no DOP passata, polpa or diced, and a bottle labeled San Marzano passata is, by the designation's own rules, not the designated product. A DOP tin carries the European Union's symbol and the designation's own round logo, with Vesuvius and a cluster of tomatoes, and the container is marked SM. The fresh fruit must show at least 4 percent refractometric residue, the peeled fruit in the tin at least 5 percent, and the drained weight must be at least 60 percent of the net. Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP, registered in 2009, is the small tomato of the Vesuvius area, traditionally kept hanging in bunches, al piennolo, and its designation covers both the fresh fruit and the conserva made from it. Pomodoro di Pachino IGP, from the southeastern tip of Sicily, covers only the fresh fruit.

The American rules work differently. In the United States the federal standard for canned tomatoes defines styles and ingredients, names no variety beyond red or reddish, and does not reserve the words San Marzano for the Campanian fruit. A tomato of the San Marzano type grown in California, or anywhere else, can be labeled San Marzano under that standard. Without the seal, the two words name a type, an elongated plum tomato, and say nothing certain about where it grew. San Marzano style names the same type. The designation itself is claimed in full, Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino, printed with the symbol and the logo, and a tin that prints only the two words is not claiming it.

Line three: the origin, twice

An Italian tin now prints two origins, on two separate lines. Since 2018 Italian law has required every tomato derivative sold in Italy, peeled, passata, concentrate and any sauce that is at least half tomato, to state the country where the tomato was grown and the country where it was processed, Paese di coltivazione del pomodoro and Paese di trasformazione del pomodoro, or the single line Origine del pomodoro: Italia when both are Italy. The decree's purpose is to tell shoppers where the fruit grew, which a Product of Italy line does not. Customs origin follows the last substantial processing, so a processing address alone does not say where the fruit grew. The rule is a national measure for tomato products sold in Italy, adopted as an experiment, so a tin packed for export need not carry the line. A tin that names the province is making a checkable claim. Product of Italy and Packed in Italy are processing addresses. Italian tomatoes is a claim about the fruit that EU law requires to be true but that no seal certifies.

Line four: the ingredients

The ingredients list shows every addition to the tin. Tomatoes, tomato juice, salt is the plain tin. The San Marzano DOP rules allow basil leaves, and citric acid up to 0.5 percent of the weight as a processing aid. The National Center for Home Food Preservation notes that commercial canners often add citric acid, and it is not a quality signal either way. Tomatoes sit close to the pH 4.6 line that separates high-acid foods, which can be safely canned in a water bath, from low-acid foods, which cannot. Home-canning guidance adds citric acid or lemon juice to keep them below it, and the American standard permits processors to add organic acids for the same purpose.

Calcium chloride does a different job. The American standard allows calcium salts as firming agents, up to 0.045 percent calcium in whole tomatoes and 0.08 percent in diced, sliced and wedges. A firming agent keeps the pieces in shape, so a diced tomato that lists one suits a chili or a salsa that wants cubes, and a smooth sauce starts better from passata or from whole peeled tomatoes crushed by hand. The packing medium is the last line to read. Whole tomatoes in juice are the fruit and its own liquid; whole tomatoes in puree or in paste sit in a thicker, cooked medium that adds body.

Line five: the weight and the arithmetic

A European tin prints two weights, because the food information regulation requires a drained net weight wherever a solid food is presented in a liquid medium; an Italian pelati tin might read 400 grams net, 240 grams drained. An American tin prints the net quantity, which includes the liquid. The drained weight is the tomato. The DOP floor of 60 percent means a 400 gram DOP tin holds at least 240 grams of fruit. Passata has no drained weight because nothing drains, so a bottle is compared gram for gram. Concentrate is compared on solids. A 130 gram tube of tomato paste at the 24 percent American floor carries about 31 grams of tomato solids, roughly one and a half to two and a half times what a 400 gram tin of whole peeled carries at 5 percent, depending on whether the juice is counted. The table uses illustrative prices, not shop prices, to show the shape of the arithmetic.

Format	Net weight	Tomato you cook	Illustrative price	Per 100 g of tomato
Supermarket diced, 14.5 oz	411 g	About 230 g drained	$1.50	65 cents
Domestic whole peeled, 28 oz	794 g	About 480 g drained	$3.50	73 cents
Italian pelati, no seal	400 g	About 240 g drained	$3.00	$1.25
San Marzano DOP pelati	400 g	At least 240 g drained	$6.50	$2.71
Passata, glass bottle	500 g	500 g, nothing to drain	$5.00	$1.00
Tomato paste tube	130 g	130 g at 24 percent solids or more	$3.00	$2.31, a spoon at a time

Three readings fall out. Per gram of fruit, the DOP tin costs between three and four times the domestic one. Per plate, a sauce for four takes about 400 grams of whole tomatoes, one Italian tin or half the big domestic one. At that scale the step up from the plain Italian tin to the DOP tin is under ninety cents a plate, and the step up from the domestic tin about a dollar twenty, a difference that shows most in a sauce of tomato, salt and twenty minutes, and least under a pound of sausage and chile for three hours. Per gram of tomato solids, the tube of paste is among the cheapest tomato in this table, about ten cents a gram against fifteen to twenty-five for the plain Italian tin, thirty-three to fifty-four for the DOP depending on whether the juice is counted, and eight to twenty for the passata depending on its Brix, which makes a spoonful browned in oil an economical way to add depth. At these prices the passata bottle, with no liquid to pay for, costs less per gram of tomato than the plain Italian tin.

Line six: the grade and the date

The United States Department of Agriculture grades canned tomatoes A, B and C on factors including drained weight, color, wholeness and absence of defects. When a tin carries the grade, Grade A is a real claim about color and intact fruit, and Fancy, the older name for the same grade, was dropped when the standard was revised in 2026. On a San Marzano DOP tin, the date line comes with the harvest. The San Marzano DOP harvest runs from 15 July to 15 October, and the DOP label must state the harvest and processing campaign alongside the expiry date, so the year of the fruit is printed on the tin. The tin stays safe past its best-before date if it is undamaged and has been stored properly, but federal guidance for high-acid canned food puts best quality within twelve to eighteen months. Glass shows the color of the fruit, which a tin does not. On any tin, a dent along a seam, a rust spot, a bulge or a leak cancels every other line.

Seals, rules and descriptive words

Word on the tin	Status	What it says
Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP, with the EU symbol and logo	Real	The designated fruit, hand-harvested in the zone, whole peeled or filetti only
Harvest campaign on a San Marzano DOP label	Real	The season the fruit was picked and packed, required by the DOP rules
Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP	Real	The small Vesuvius tomato, fresh or in conserva
Paese di coltivazione, Paese di trasformazione	Real	Where the fruit grew and where it was canned, required in Italy since 2018
Peso sgocciolato, drained weight	Real	The fruit without the liquid; the only fair comparison
Passata, on an Italian-made product	Real	Fresh tomato, sieved, 5 to 12 degrees Brix, never from concentrate
Tomato paste, on an American label	Real	A legal solids floor of 24 percent
Calcium chloride in the ingredients	Real	A firming agent, there to keep the pieces in shape
Citric acid in the ingredients	Real and ordinary	An acid that keeps the tomatoes below pH 4.6; not a quality signal
Grade A (formerly Fancy)	Real	USDA grade for color and intact fruit; Fancy dropped in the 2026 revision
BPA-free lining	Real, about the can	Says nothing about the fruit; EU cans are moving there anyway under the 2024 regulation, with the longest transition running into 2028
San Marzano, without the DOP	Type, not a place	An elongated plum tomato, with no certified origin
San Marzano style	Type	The same type, named as a style
Product of Italy, Packed in Italy	Processing country	Where it was canned, not necessarily where it grew

Sauce, sun-dried and the small tomatoes in a jar

Three things sold beside the tins do different jobs. A jar of sugo, marinara or arrabbiata is a finished sauce, cooked with other ingredients such as oil, onion, garlic or chile, and its ingredients line shows where the tomato sits among them. Sun-dried tomatoes, in oil or dry, are tomato dried down to a chewy concentrate of another kind. The small whole tomatoes in glass, cherry tomatoes in brine, Piennolo in their own juice, slow-roasted cherries in oil, are packed to be served whole rather than cooked down.

What to buy for which job

For the long sauce, the braise and anything that will be crushed by hand, look for whole peeled tomatoes with a named place on the label. I Contadini's whole peeled tomatoes in water (shop I Contadini whole peeled tomatoes) are an elongated tomato from a Puglia producer, jarred by hand and packed in water rather than a thickened puree; the Puglia on a Plate food culture guide covers the region. Pair them with a long-sauce shape from the pasta shapes guide, cooked the way the dried pasta technique guide describes, or build a puttanesca on the fish in the anchovies complete guide.

For the twenty-minute sauce, the pizza and the shakshuka, look for passata in glass. I Contadini's La Rustica passata (shop I Contadini La Rustica passata) comes from the same producer in a 500 gram size, enough for a full pot of sauce. Masseria Mirogallo's passata (shop Masseria Mirogallo passata) is made from fresh tomatoes blanched in boiling water and passed through a sieve. I Contadini's La Dolce (shop La Dolce cherry tomato passata) is crushed cherry tomatoes in a 250 gram jar, sized for a small pan.

For the plate rather than the pot, look for the small tomatoes packed to be served whole. Gentile's yellow Piennolo tomatoes (shop Gentile yellow Piennolo tomatoes) are grown in volcanic soil near Mt. Vesuvius and packed al naturale by the Gragnano house the Pastificio Gentile complete guide profiles. I Contadini's La Gialla (shop La Gialla yellow tomato passata) is a golden-yellow passata, jarred with basil and no added salt, for a pasta or pizza that calls for fresh sauce. For depth by the spoonful in a dry form, Burlap and Barrel's sun-dried tomato powder (shop Burlap and Barrel sun-dried tomato powder), from tomatoes grown on Turkey's Aegean coast, goes into the pan with onion or garlic or into a rub for grilled meat. For the night with no time, a finished sauce does the cooking: Bianco DiNapoli's marinara (shop Bianco DiNapoli marinara) or Mirogallo's tomato and basil sauce (shop Mirogallo tomato and basil sauce), each read, like any jar, on its ingredients line. Products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and visitors can ask staff questions in the shop.