I started collecting cookbooks in the mid-1980's. Back then I bought mostly Italian cookbooks. That was before the Internet, Food TV, Whole Foods (as it exists today) and all of the easy accessibility to information and products that we now take for granted. And many of the recipes called for "double concentrated tomato paste" in a tube. Never heard of it except in those cookbooks, never saw it in Shop Rite or Stop & Shop and so I used tomato paste from a 6 ounce can. And my recipes came out fine. But I always wondered if I was missing something.
Well 30 years have passed and I saw this tube of Cento Tomato Paste in Costco. I thought it was a bit pricey but I sprung for it. I needed to try it. I studied the label. I compared it with the labels of other brands of canned tomato pastes. I tried it in recipes. I ate it out of the tube. I did not brush with it. Here's what I learned.
It is not double concentrated. It is more like 1.33x concentrated. I tried and tested the five cans of tomato paste shown below. They are all nearly identical in ingredients and nutritional content. I will compare the Cento to the Kirkland. Kirkland is the Costco brand. Since I bought them together in Costco I will test them together.
First question is how much "tomato product" is in the tube vs. the can? Is it double as the name suggests? This can be calculated by looking at the calories on the package. The Kirkland can has 30 calories per 33 grams. The Cento tube has 40 calories per 33 grams. Since the only caloric ingredient in either product is tomatoes, that tells us that there is about 1.33x more tomato for equal mass of tube vs paste.
Next look at the package size. The can is 6 ounces, the tube is 4.56 ounces. Interesting, take the 4.56 ounce tube and multiply it by 1.33 and you get almost exactly 6 ounces. That's right - the amount of "tomato product" in a tube is virtually identical to the can. One tube = one can!
How about the relative price. Cento was packaged as two tubes for $4.89, or $2.45 per tube. Kirkland cans were 12 for $6.79, or $0.57 per can. Since we've established that a can of paste and a tube of paste contain the same amount of tomato product, that makes the tube 2.45/0.57 or 4.3 times more expensive per tomato unit.
How about the taste? They both taste like tomato paste to me. The Cento may have been a tiny bit sweeter but that could have been because of the higher concentration. I doubt that I would be able to tell any difference in a recipe.
Well 30 years have passed and I saw this tube of Cento Tomato Paste in Costco. I thought it was a bit pricey but I sprung for it. I needed to try it. I studied the label. I compared it with the labels of other brands of canned tomato pastes. I tried it in recipes. I ate it out of the tube. I did not brush with it. Here's what I learned.
It is not double concentrated. It is more like 1.33x concentrated. I tried and tested the five cans of tomato paste shown below. They are all nearly identical in ingredients and nutritional content. I will compare the Cento to the Kirkland. Kirkland is the Costco brand. Since I bought them together in Costco I will test them together.
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| I purchased 5 cans to test. They ranged from 57 cents a can for Costco's Kirkland brand to 99 cents for Whole Foods 365 brand. |
Next look at the package size. The can is 6 ounces, the tube is 4.56 ounces. Interesting, take the 4.56 ounce tube and multiply it by 1.33 and you get almost exactly 6 ounces. That's right - the amount of "tomato product" in a tube is virtually identical to the can. One tube = one can!
How about the relative price. Cento was packaged as two tubes for $4.89, or $2.45 per tube. Kirkland cans were 12 for $6.79, or $0.57 per can. Since we've established that a can of paste and a tube of paste contain the same amount of tomato product, that makes the tube 2.45/0.57 or 4.3 times more expensive per tomato unit.
How about the taste? They both taste like tomato paste to me. The Cento may have been a tiny bit sweeter but that could have been because of the higher concentration. I doubt that I would be able to tell any difference in a recipe.
How about the convenience? Now we're getting somewhere. If you need only a 1/4 can of tomato paste you can just squirt out 1/4 of a tube (remember that a can and a tube have the same amount of tomato solids) and refrigerate what you don't use. The problem with that is that although you only used 1/4 of a tube, the tube costs 4.3x the price of a can. So you could have used 1/4 of a can and thrown out the rest and saved a few cents.
Once you open a can of tomato paste you are generally committed to using the whole can. Even covered with wrap my paste starts crusting after about a week in the refrigerator. Of course freezing what you don't use is always an option.
Or... you can freeze a can of paste overnight. Then the next day run the can under hot tap water for about 15 seconds. Then remove both lids and while using one of the lids as a pusher, push out the frozen mass of tomato paste. You can the slice what you need and save the rest in a zip-type plastic bag back in the freezer.
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| You can freeze a can of paste and extrude it out as a single piece to slice as needed. |
I will tell you what is cool about the tube paste. It come in a soft metal tube - mostly tin, I think - just like toothpaste came back until the early 60's, I believe. It's not only nostalgic but once you squeeze the tube it stays squeezed.
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| I found that Whole Foods sells "(not) double concentrated" tomato paste. It is actually less expensive than the Cento that I bought in Costco. The Cento was $4.89 for two 4.56 ounce tubes. The 365 brand was $1.99 for a single 5.3 ounce tube. But the tube is 25 calories per 33 grams, the same as the 365 paste in a can. In other words, Whole foods is just squeezing 88% of a can of their tomato paste into a tube and charging twice as much. The "per tomato unit" price for the 365 is about the same as Cento.
So there you have it. For me, I'll use my tubes but I'm not planning to buy them again. I never saw Bobby Flay or Alton Brown use tomato paste in a tube. Also with freezing as an option I don't see a need to justify the expense. And although the Cento that I bought had a "best before" date that was almost two years away, I don't know if that date is equally valid if I open the tube today versus if I open it 18 months from today. I just don't know. I don't like not knowing!
Did you see that they now sell sour cream in a tube? To be continued.
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