Tomato, Mutti invests 42.5 million in new plants and AI software

Forty-two and a half million in investments for 2026 - included in a more articulated a 100 million euro plan over the five-year period - and presiding over foreign markets, which for Mutti, leader in the production and processing of industrial tomatoes, represent 60% of turnover. The company from Montechiarugolo (Parma), heart in Emilia and business all over the world, is in the midst of a transformation of the operating system, to which 40% of 2026 investments are destined. "An arduous transition," says CEO Francesco Mutti, "but one that will allow a leap forward in terms of management of all parts of the process.

The largest chunk of resources, 60 per cent, is earmarked for the improvement of production facilities. For years, the company - which processes 700,000 tonnes of product every year - has been relying on augmented reality visors and AI algorithms, in order to have an ever more capillary control over the supply chain, through systems for the automatic analysis of the quality of the tomatoes entering the plants. One of Francesco Mutti's pet peeves, he claims: 'I don't want to say that we get to control the tomatoes one by one, but it's close.

Mutti closed the first half of 2025 at 385.722 million in sales, up 4% from 370.748 million in the same period of 2024 (703 million in the 12 months). 85% of the turnover is core products (pulps, passata, concentrate, peeled products), while 15% is accounted for by ready-made sauces. 2025 represented a return to normality, after a horribilis 2024 for the entire sector, marked by a dramatic production crisis, which affected growth and margins. 'The good 2025 campaign reassures us and is also giving us good hope for the now imminent 2026 campaign,' says Mutti.

The CEO has just returned from the USA, where the brand has been the fastest growing brand in the tomato market for five years, with a value performance of 46%. "We are travelling at a very fast pace there, despite the turbulence due to tariffs and dollar volatility, and the horizon is a long-term strategy". The company is also a leader in Australia and Europe: Italia, France, Scandinavia, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and Ireland. About a year ago Mutti Poland was opened, the group's seventh commercial branch, with the task of presiding over Eastern European markets, considered 'very promising'.

Francesco Mutti

The approach with the Gulf countries is different. "At the moment they weigh less than 0.2 per cent of our turnover," says the entrepreneur . But the head is there. "The conflict in Iran and the opening of yet another crisis in the Middle East risk producing anew inflationary flare-up like, if not worse than, that of 2022, with the war in Ukraine," he says. That year, the cost of the bill for the company rose from the usual EUR 3.5 million to EUR 42 million. "Today it is unthinkable that the supply chain will be able to take on new industrial costs".