Poverty: Food vendors add colouring to blended tomatoes

2026-03-09 - 04:36

By Elizabeth Adegbesan The high cost of living has made many people look for short cuts to save money at all costs. Some people don’t even mind the outcome of such a short cut as far as cutting costs is concerned. One of such areas is food catering service. Economy&Lifestyle discovered that some local food vendors now add colouring to fresh tomato paste to make it red. These local food vendors get unripe tomatoes which are way cheaper than the red ones, blend it and add colouring to make it red. These days, such unripe tomatoes are paired with processed sachet tomato paste or other natural additives. Mrs. Grace Hamzat, a women dress vendor, claimed that such gives the sauce a bitter taste compared to when ripe fresh tomatoes are used. “Most times these unripe tomatoes either gives the sauce a bitter or soured taste. “That is why I prefer buying food in eateries than from some local restaurant. “If you are opportuned to see the type of tomatoes most of them use to prepare meals, you will always prefer to prepare your meals from your kitchen. “But few have standard hygiene protocol which they follow strictly”, she added. Mr. Felix Osaponwan, a commercial tomatoes grinder, explained that some of his customers, who sell cooked food, usually mix redish substance in their freshly grinded tomatoes which has made him to vow not to patronize local food vendors within and outside his area. He said: “Some of my customers, who sell cooked food, usually mix redish substance with their freshly grinded tomatoes. “When I inquired what it was, one woman said it was dried skin of red tomatoes that is blended. “I decided to ask one of her helpers who now told me it is colour. “This made me to stop patronizing local food vendors within and outside my area. “I hardly also eat in parties. These days, there is nothing people will not do to make profit.” Mrs. Racheal ...a fresh tomato seller said that most local food vendors hardly buy strong and ripe tomatoes. “Nowadays, you hardly see a local cooked food seller buying ripe tomatoes. “Some buy few good ones and mix it with pressed ones. “Others buy green ones and add sachet or tin tomato paste to make it red. “A few add some spices to make it red of which when you are eating the food for example rice and stew, you will see the colour of the rice is pink. “While some add colour to make the sauce red and attractive to the eyes.” Years back, natural additives such as beetroot, paprika extract, red bell peppers were blended along with tomatoes to achieve redness. But today, Economy&Lifestyle gathered that food vendors add synthetic food colorants, which are common in commercial paste, to fresh unripe blended tomatoes in a bid to save cost and make profit. They include but are not limited to Erythrosine, Ponceau 4R, Carmoisine (E122) and Allura Red.