Woman sues Tomato Company, saying they weren't San Marzanos in the Can

San Marzano tomatoes are prized by chefs around the world for their intense flavor and are routinely recommended by recipe writers, but a woman in California said her attempt to make a sauce from these rich and balanced tomatoes was disrupted by a misleading label.

Simpson Imports, a Pennsylvania tomato seller, has been selling Roma tomatoes in cans and boxes for years, but California woman Andrea Valiente said in a lawsuit filed last year that the company had used “highly deceptive tomato packaging to trick consumers into believing they are buying real San Marzano tomatoes, at San Marzano prices.”

Simpson Imports tried to dismiss the lawsuit, but Araceli Martínez-Olguín, a judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, said in an order Tuesday that some of Ms. Valiente's claims could proceed.

Simpson Imports said in an emailed statement that it “strongly disputes that reasonable consumers could have been misled” by the label, as “San Marzano” does not appear on it.

The company said “San Marzano” had not been used on the products' labels in nearly a decade, not since the “products contain a different blend.”

Simpson imports sells its canned and boxed tomatoes, as well as tomato sauces and tomato paste, under the brand “San Merican Tomatoes,” which it said was made with a “proprietary blend of Roma tomatoes.” The company's products are often recommended by food expertsincluding writers from The New York Times.

At a hearing in January, Simpson Imports said it had sold canned tomatoes labeled “San Marzano” nine years ago, according to the judge's order.

Ms. Valiente said in her complaint that the old product and the current product had “almost identical” packaging.

Both the old and current packaging had colored ribbons on the top and bottom to indicate whether the tomatoes were whole, crushed, diced or pureed. Both cans were also decorated with illustrations of tomatoes that resembled the elongated shapes of San Marzanos. Simpson Imports said in a statement that the tomato illustration was “a signature of a Roma tomato that the company founder made when he was a child.”

On the cans in use today, the letters “SMT” appear over the tomato illustrations. The older product had “San Marzano” on the tomatoes pictured. The current can design also has words embedded in each letter to spell 'San' on the 'S', 'erican' on the 'M' and 'omato' on the 'T'.

“The result is letters that are so comically minuscule that they are almost impossible to see with the naked eye,” Ms. Valiente said in the complaint.

Judge Martínez-Olguín said in her order: That was the case The Courthouse News Service reports thisthat it was “plausible” that other consumers would see the cans and “reasonably believe that Simpson's tomatoes are San Marzano tomatoes.”

Simpson Imports' tomatoes are priced higher than those of many other canned tomato brands, which “contributes to the plausibility of the consumer's expectation that Simpson's tomatoes are San Marzano tomatoes,” the judge wrote.

The labeling of San Marzano tomatoes in the United States is loose. In the European Union, only tomatoes grown in a specific region of Italy and which comply with this requirement are used a number of other requirements receive the 'Denomination of Protected Origin' or DOP, to prove that they are San Marzanos. In the United States, some tomato sellers claim to grow San Marzano varieties and may sell these tomatoes in the 'San Marzano style' or use 'San Marzano' without the official European certification.

Ms. Valiente said in her lawsuit that the labeling on Simpson Imports' tomato cans suggested they could be either DOP tomatoes or “San Marzano style” tomatoes, although in reality it “sells inferior Roma tomatoes.” She has 21 days to file an amended complaint.

In 2019Three other California home cooks have filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey-based tomato retailer, Cento Fine Foods, claiming it falsely labeled its tomatoes as San Marzanos. Cento said in a statement at the time the allegations were “completely unfounded,” and the plaintiffs dropped the lawsuit in 2021.