Many restaurants in India have shifted to tomato puree as prices of tomatoes skyrocket. Tomato prices have surged more than 500% in the last one month. Consumer companies are also ramping up the production of tomato purees that are much cheaper than the actual tomato.
Mother Diary's spokesperson has said that it has seen a 300% jump in tomato puree sales in the last 15 days in New Delhi. Likewise Dabur has also ramped its production. As per Economic Times, puree sales at Tata's online shopping website BigBasket surged 175% in early July, with senior executive Seshu Kumar saying customers who earlier bought an average of 1 kg fresh tomatoes per order were buying half of that.
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E-commerce retailed Amazon has also said that the demand for tomato puree has risen 5 times over the last month. The ketchup sales have also risen 30%.
Tomato puree packs contain 40% of tomato and 60% of water. While one kilogram of tomato puree costs Rs 130, tomato costs Rs 199 per Kg in Delhi.
After tomato prices surged many global outlets including McDonald's and Subway had dropped tomatoes from their menu items.