Tomato Passata (Purée)

Tomato passata at 6-10% Brix, strained from fresh Egyptian tomatoes with the seeds and skins removed. Unlike a concentrate, passata ships at working strength — it goes into the kettle as it arrives, with no dilution step and no reconstitution loss. Packed aseptically without additives or preservatives.

Passata and paste concentrate start from the same fruit and end up in many of the same products. The difference is where the water comes out.

A concentrate leaves the factory at 28-38% Brix and arrives at your line as a thick paste that has to be diluted back before it can be used. Passata leaves at 6-10% Brix — close to the strength the tomato was at when it was pressed, with the seeds and skins strained out and nothing else removed. It goes into the kettle as it arrives.

That matters in two places. First, there is no reconstitution step, so no mixing line, no water quality to control, and no batch-to-batch variation introduced by your own dilution. Second, the tomato has been through one fewer heat cycle, which shows in the flavour. For a sauce where the tomato is the main note rather than a base note, that difference is tasted.

The trade-off is freight. You are shipping water that a concentrate buyer leaves behind in Egypt, and a container of passata carries far less tomato solids than a container of 36-38% paste. For producers close to market, or running products where flavour outranks cost per tonne of solids, that trade is usually worth making.

Mesh screen runs 1.0 to 1.2 mm, coarser than our paste lines, because passata is meant to carry some natural body rather than be smoothed completely flat. Two grades are available — 6-8% and 8-10% Brix — so the base can be matched to the viscosity your recipe is built around.