Tomato

Completeness scorecard

Deterministic gap audit — no score is composite, no cell is LLM-judged. Each chip is re-derivable by re-running tools/evidence/build-ingredient-scorecard.mjs. review: residuals and missing data are worked autonomously via data/evidence/ingredient-scorecard-review-flags.csv and wiki/completeness-gaps.md.

This ingredient stub was created during the FDA FY2018-FY2020 Total Diet Study element-results ingest so future source ingests have a stable destination for this food matrix. FDA reports this item as TDS Food 117, “Tomato, raw.” fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020

Why this commodity accumulates heavy metals

Tomato is a botanical fruit grown close to the soil surface, and its metal burden is determined primarily by the chemical composition of the growing medium. Lead and cadmium enter tomato tissue through root uptake from contaminated soils; both metals are taken up passively along with nutrients, with Cd uptake facilitated by the same membrane transporters that move zinc and calcium into root cells. Tomatoes are generally considered a low-to-moderate accumulator for both Pb and Cd relative to leafy vegetables or root crops, because the fruit forms a physical separation from the root system and metals must be transported through multiple plant compartments to reach the edible portion. However, tomatoes are a dietary staple consumed in large volumes by diverse populations, meaning that even low per-gram concentrations contribute meaningfully to aggregate dietary exposure across the population. Soil organic matter, pH, and proximity to industrial or road-traffic Pb sources are the primary drivers of field-level variance.

Heavy metal contamination profile

Per-analyte snapshot derived from the machine-readable contamination_profile in the frontmatter above. data gap indicates the literature has been reviewed for this commodity-analyte combination and no usable occurrence data was found (a finding, not a placeholder). The Key sources column shows the top 2-3 contributing sources by year and sample size, with numbered wikilink aliases.

Synthesis basis and censoring treatment

The lead, nickel, chromium, and uranium cells were resynthesized on 2026-06-11 on the native basis of this page, fresh (raw) tomato fruit. Most of the primary occurrence literature reports dry-weight produce concentrations; those values run several-fold higher than the fresh-weight figures because the fruit is roughly 94 percent water, so dry-weight anchors are read as upper-bounding corroboration rather than as the headline distribution. Chromium and nickel are reported as total elemental concentrations throughout the contributing corpus; no hexavalent-chromium measurement exists for tomato, so the chromium cell is total chromium only and no Cr-VI value is inferred from it.

Values below the analytical limit of detection or quantification are treated as left-censored, not as measured zeros. The earlier profile reported lead, nickel, chromium, and uranium at typical and 95th-percentile values of zero. Those figures were an artifact of the FDA Total Diet Study composites for “Tomato, raw,” in which every one of the 27 samples fell below the reporting limit (lead 4 µg/kg, nickel 40 µg/kg, chromium 50 µg/kg, uranium 1 µg/kg) and the reported zeros were pooled as literal zeros. The resynthesis replaces the literal zeros with the detected fresh-weight distributions from the broader literature, in which lead, nickel, and total chromium are all low but non-zero, and records the lower bound of each cell as a left-censored zero rather than as a measured zero. The applicable FDA reporting limit (4 µg/kg for lead) is stated here in prose rather than carried in the machine-readable cell, where the censored lower bound is encoded as the numeric value 0.

Lead in tomato is low in clean retail production but non-zero. The central distribution rests on fresh-weight retail surveys: Iranian Hamadan-market tomato at a mean of 7 µg/kg fresh weight (Heshmati et al. 2020, n=50 composites), Polish retail fresh tomato at a mean of 16 µg/kg and a fresh-tomato maximum of 52 µg/kg (Rusin et al. 2021), and a Polish multi-variety survey averaging 21 µg/kg fresh weight across 25 fresh and processed samples (Grochowska-Niedworok et al. 2020). The upper tail is set by the Tehran supermarket survey, which reports fresh tomato at 79 µg/kg (summer) and 241 µg/kg (autumn) fresh weight (Alimohammadi et al. 2018), corroborated by Nigerian field tomato at 167 µg/kg (Fatai et al. 2024); the Fatai values were reported after the tomato was dried and ground, and the source does not state whether its mg/kg figures are on a fresh-weight or dry-weight basis, so this corroboration is read with that basis ambiguity in mind. The 95th-percentile anchor of 240 µg/kg reflects the Alimohammadi autumn value. A single Polish frozen-tomato sample at 537 µg/kg fresh weight (Rusin et al. 2021, a one-sample frozen outlier) and the documented wastewater-irrigated and industrial-soil stratum (Bangladeshi Bogura-district tomato at 3,120 to 21,690 µg/kg dry weight, Samma et al. 2024; Quito market tomato at 460 to 650 µg/kg dry weight, Vela et al. 2023; wastewater-irrigated Cairo tomato, Ahmed et al. 2023) are held out of the central estimate and reported separately below as a contaminated-production stratum.

Nickel in tomato is reported as total nickel and rests on a thin fresh-weight pool. The Tehran supermarket survey reports tomato Ni at 161 µg/kg (summer) and 232 µg/kg (autumn) fresh weight (Alimohammadi et al. 2018), Nigerian field tomato at 133 µg/kg (Fatai et al. 2024), and a Chinese-market all-vegetable category aggregate (n=114; leafy greens, edible mushrooms, solanaceous fruits, tubers, and kale combined) at a mean of 16 µg/kg and a maximum of 86 µg/kg fresh weight, used here as a broad cross-vegetable proxy rather than a tomato-specific value (Wu 2024). The typical range spans this low Chinese-market cross-vegetable central tendency to the Tehran autumn central value; the 95th-percentile anchor of 250 µg/kg sits just above the Alimohammadi autumn figure. Egyptian tomato grown in heavily contaminated, non-remediated soil reached 1,000 µg/kg (Salem et al. 2024, untreated control) and is reported separately as a contaminated-soil stratum rather than folded into the central estimate. Confidence is low given the four-source pool and the wide geographic spread.

Chromium is reported as total chromium at low confidence; no tomato hexavalent-chromium measurement exists in the corpus. The Tehran supermarket survey reports tomato total Cr at 234 µg/kg (summer) and 412 µg/kg (autumn) fresh weight (Alimohammadi et al. 2018), the Chinese-market all-vegetable category aggregate (n=114; leafy greens, edible mushrooms, solanaceous fruits, tubers, and kale combined) at a mean of 32 µg/kg and a maximum of 278 µg/kg fresh weight, used here as a broad cross-vegetable proxy rather than a tomato-specific value (Wu 2024), and Nigerian field tomato at 99 µg/kg (Fatai et al. 2024). The typical range runs from the Chinese-market cross-vegetable central tendency to the Tehran autumn value, with the 95th-percentile anchor set at 410 µg/kg. Bangladeshi industrial-district tomato reached 5,440 µg/kg dry weight (Samma et al. 2024) and is held out as a contaminated-soil stratum.

Uranium is recorded as a reviewed data gap. The FDA Total Diet Study reported all 27 tomato samples below its 1 µg/kg uranium reporting limit, and no routed non-FDA source in the corpus reports an extractable quantitative uranium value for tomato fruit. Consistent with the uranium treatment on rice, no distribution is published; the cell is left as a gap rather than recorded as a measured zero.

Contaminated-production stratum (not pooled into the central estimates)

Several sources document tomato grown under wastewater irrigation or on industrially contaminated soil at concentrations one to two orders of magnitude above the clean-retail distributions above. These are stratified out so they do not set the central estimate, but they bound the supply-chain risk for tomato sourced from such regions. Bangladeshi Bogura-district tomato reached 3.12 to 21.69 mg/kg dry weight lead and up to 5.44 mg/kg dry weight total chromium (Samma et al. 2024); Ecuadorian Quito-market tomato reached 0.46 to 0.65 mg/kg dry weight lead (Vela et al. 2023); wastewater-irrigated Cairo tomato carried elevated lead, chromium, and nickel (Ahmed et al. 2023); and Egyptian tomato grown on contaminated soil reached 1.00 mg/kg nickel before remediation (Salem et al. 2024). Irrigation-water source and growing-region soil history are the sourcing levers that distinguish this stratum from clean-retail production.

FDA TDS FY2018-FY2020 Evidence

The normalized row-level data for this TDS food is stored in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_element_results_samples.csv, with per-food/per-analyte summaries in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_summary_by_food_analyte.csv. Concentrations are retained as FDA reported them, with the reporting-limit column preserved separately; reported zeroes are not rewritten as <LOD unless a source explicitly says to do so. fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020

Routing

This node is linked from the ingredient index and the FDA TDS source routing table.

Contamination Profile State

The machine-readable contamination profile is in_progress for analytes measured in the TDS file and pending for profile metals not measured by this source. Ingredient-level values belong here once cross-source synthesis is reviewed; product-category values belong on the relevant product page.

FDA TDS FY2018-FY2020 Occurrence Values

FDA Total Diet Study FY2018-FY2020 reports prepared/composite-food concentration distributions for this ingredient as TDS food “Tomato, raw” (fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020). Values are in ppb-equivalent on the basis FDA reported. The full sample-level data are stored in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_element_results_samples.csv; per-analyte distributions in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_summary_by_food_analyte.csv. These distributions count as one source under persistent-wiki-ingest-rule synthesis discipline; numerical values stay in body scratch until a second independent source is integrated.

Ranges by source, region, and variety

No quantified data on this lever in the current corpus; section will be expanded when relevant evidence is ingested.

Processing effects

Fresh tomato transitions into several processed forms that concentrate or dilute metals in different proportions. Dicing, crushing, and cooking in water do not significantly change metal concentrations on a wet-weight basis, but evaporation during sauce or paste production concentrates all solutes proportionally. Tomato paste, which undergoes substantial water removal, will carry higher ppb values for any metal present in the raw fruit simply because the same mass of metal is distributed across less water. Canning introduces a separate concern: the heat sterilisation step required for shelf-stable canned tomatoes in tinplate cans can drive tin (Sn) migration from the can lining into the acidic tomato matrix; this pathway is documented for canned tomato products more broadly and is discussed on the tomato-soup page. Lacquer-lined or BPA-free can coatings substantially reduce Sn migration.

Ingredient-derivative risk

The primary derivatives of tomato in food manufacturing are tomato paste (concentrated), tomato puree, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, ketchup, tomato juice, sun-dried tomatoes, and tomato powder. Because metals do not volatilize during cooking, any derivative that reduces water content relative to fresh tomato will show proportionally elevated concentrations on a wet-weight basis. Sun-dried tomatoes and tomato powder, which remove nearly all free water, would be expected to carry the highest per-gram concentrations of any metal present in the raw fruit. Tomato soup and tomato-based sauces occupy an intermediate position. Ketchup, which is typically made from concentrated paste diluted with vinegar and other ingredients, presents a blended metal profile. The tomato-soup page carries occurrence data specific to the canned condensed soup form.

Mitigation options

Sourcing levers

Tomatoes grown in soils with low background Pb and Cd concentrations, verified by supplier soil testing, represent the primary sourcing lever. Industrial or peri-urban cultivation sites near smelters, highways, or legacy industrial land carry higher Pb risk. Specification of growing-region origin and soil metal testing at supplier qualification is the upstream control.

Agronomic levers

Soil pH management (maintaining pH above 6.5) reduces Cd and Pb bioavailability through adsorption to soil particles. Liming contaminated soils is an established agronomic practice for reducing Cd uptake across vegetable crops. Organic matter additions similarly reduce metal bioavailability. These interventions are most relevant where supplier soils are moderately elevated rather than severely contaminated.

Processing levers

No quantified data on this lever in the current corpus; section will be expanded when relevant evidence is ingested.

Formulation levers

No quantified data on this lever in the current corpus; section will be expanded when relevant evidence is ingested.

Testing and QC levers

Because tomato is a high-volume dietary staple, lot-level testing of raw tomato paste or puree used in high-volume products is warranted for Pb and Cd. Third-party ICP-MS testing of finished paste concentrates provides the most actionable signal for downstream product manufacturers.

Packaging and storage levers

For canned tomato products, specifying lacquer-lined or polymer-coated cans eliminates the Sn migration pathway from tinplate. This is addressed in more detail on tomato-soup.

Regulatory limits that apply

The European Union sets maximum levels for Pb and Cd in fresh tomatoes under eu2023-contaminants-maximum-levels: Pb at 0.10 mg/kg (100 ppb) and Cd at 0.050 mg/kg (50 ppb) on a fresh-weight basis. These limits apply to tomato as a fresh fruit or vegetable placed on the EU market. Processed tomato products such as paste or sauce are governed by separate matrix-specific provisions in EU contaminant regulations. No FDA action level specific to raw tomato is currently in force; fda-closer-to-zero guidance addresses Pb in processed baby foods rather than raw commodities. codex-cadmium-mls provides the international Codex Cd maximum for vegetables.

Sources

Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.