Following a complaint filed last year by SPC, Australia’s anti-dumping regulator has ruled that three large Italian tomato processing companies sold products in Australia at artificially low prices and significantly undercut local businesses.
Australian tomato processor SPC’s complaint argued that supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths had been selling 400 g cans of Italian tomatoes for AUD 1.10 under their own labels. Its brand, Ardmona, was being sold at AUD 2.10 despite being grown in Australia, damaging local producers.
The Anti-Dumping Commission investigated four Italian producers – De Clemente, IMCA, Mutti and La Doria – and found three of the four companies had “dumped” products in Australia over the 12 months to the end of September 2024. The preliminary review, which cleared La Doria, said, “exporters from Italy exported the goods to Australia at dumped and/or subsidised prices”.
The commission concluded that the dumping of tomatoes by the three players and a range of unspecified other companies had a negative impact on SPC. It found that the Italian imports “significantly undercut Australian industry prices by between 13 per cent to 24 per cent”.
While the commission found SPC had lost sales, market share and profits because of “price suppression and price depression”, it did not quantify the extent of those losses. More broadly, the preliminary review found there had not been “material injury to the Australian industry” from imports. It also recognised that Australian customers were buying higher volumes of imported Italian goods over Australian-produced goods because of “consumer preference for prepared or preserved tomatoes of Italian origin and flavour”.
“The Commissioner preliminarily considers that, at this point in the investigation based on the evidence before the Commissioner and, having assessed other factors in the Australian market for prepared or preserved tomatoes in which the Australian industry competes, imports of dumped and/or subsidised goods from Italy have had an effect on SPC’s economic condition but material injury to the Australian industry has not been caused by those imports.”
Responding to the commission’s probe, European Union officials warned that allegations of misconduct could create “significant political tension”, and inquiries into the region’s food exports “especially on the basis of questionable evidence, would be very badly perceived”.
In a separate submission to the Anti-Dumping Commission, the Italian government said SPC’s complaint was “unwarranted and unsubstantiated”.
In 2024, Australia imported 155,503 tonnes of preserved tomatoes, and only exported 6,269 tonnes.
Imports included 64,068 tonnes of canned tomatoes (HS 200210), of which 61,570 tonnes originated from Italy, and an additional 63,370 tonnes of tomato paste (HS 200290).
Meanwhile Australian processors packed a total of 213,000 tonnes of fresh tomatoes.
The commission findings will be the basis of the agency’s recommendation to the Australian government who will decide what action, if any, to take against the Italian producers by late January. In 2016, the Anti-Dumping Commission had already found exporters of the Feger and La Doria canned tomatoes brand had harmed the domestic industry by dumping products in Australia and the Australian government had imposed import duties on those companies.
Meanwhile, negotiations regarding a free-trade agreement between Australia and the EU which have been paused since 2023 due to a deadlock over agricultural tariffs are expected to be restarted next year.
Post time: Dec-01-2025