Where does all of that tomato concentrate in ketchup, pizza and pasta sauces, soups, and canned tomato paste come from? Chances are very good it hails from China, where decades ago an army general convinced the government to build a tomato-product industry that could export to the whole world. Filmmakers Jean-Baptiste Malet and Xavier Deleu’s illuminating documentary The Empire of Red Gold (based on Malet’s titular book) explains how China rose to dominance in a multi-trillion dollar business while also harvesting and processing its own genetically-altered brand of resilient tomato. Africa, Italy, and the U.S. all play roles in the global tomato industry. Italian factories were disassembled and rebuilt in China as part of an elaborate barter, calling into question all of those product labels with Italian names evoking sunny, Mediterranean orchards (not an illegal practice, but certainly not honest). Keeping up the globalization narrative, the film tells the story of the Heinz company, which employed assembly lines and automation long before Henry Ford. In fact, Heinz provided many North American workers with good-paying jobs until Warren Buffett bought the whole works in 2014, closing many factories and laying off thousands (transferring labor to cheaper places). The global economy is full of surprises as this intriguing documentary about the world’s most consumed fruit makes clear. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)
The Empire of Red Gold
(2017) 52 min. DVD: $59.95 ($250 w/PPR from edu.passionriver.com). Passion River (avail. from most distributors). Volume 33, Issue 3
The Empire of Red Gold
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