Escalon: Above All, A Better Tomato

There’s an art and science to producing the world’s best Tomato products. ESCALON brands consistently maintain top quality and taste by strictly adhering to a set of processing criteria and practices:

1. Only the best tomato varieties and the best growers
2. Only in-season California tomatoes, fresh-packed within hours of harvest
3. Minimized cooking and processing times
4. Only steam peeling, never peeled with lye/chemicals – natural is best
5. Only low-temperature processing – this maintains tomatoes’ rich red color
6. No added citric acid, ever - this maintains natural flavor and ensures our products taste less acidic

Our research teams have been developing and selecting tomato varieties that provide the balance of flavor, color, aroma, and product performance for more than 70 years. These tomato varieties are grown and harvested by our select grower group, many of whom were handpicked by our founder, Cristoforo. The result is consistently delicious flavor and performance batch after batch.

Our gentle processing respects the flavor. Fresh tomatoes must be handled with care. That’s why we insist on gentle processing methods that never sacrifice quality for quantity. We use low-temperature technology and minimize cooking time to capture more of each tomato’s fresh color and flavor. Instead of using harsh chemicals to peel our tomatoes, we only use steam to protect their taste as well as the environment. Our steam peeling method is most similar to the home canning technique cooks have used for generations.

Above all, what matters to you and your customers is taste. We make our entire line of Escalon branded tomatoes without added citric acid, a preservative that can impart a noticeably bitter taste. Citric Acid is used by some manufacturers to lower their tomatoes’ pH and run their lines faster. The fresh-tasting goodness of natural tomatoes is what sets our products – and our customers’ recipes – apart from the rest.