The San Marzano Tomato Scam That May Be Bigger Than Just One Brand

Two people in California are suing Cento Fine Foods and the reason is pretty entertaining — they say the company has been selling fake San Marzano tomatoes and calling them the real thing.

San Marzano tomatoes are the fancy ones. Serious home cooks swear by them. They cost more than regular canned tomatoes and people pay the premium because they're supposed to taste genuinely better — less acidic, fewer seeds, thicker and meatier flesh that breaks down into a richer sauce. The lawsuit itself describes them as "the Ferrari or Prada of canned tomato varieties." That line is in actual court documents.

Cento is one of the most recognized Italian food brands in the US. Walk down the canned tomato aisle at basically any grocery store, and you'll see their red and white cans. Their San Marzano tomatoes are labeled "Certified San Marzano" and priced accordingly. The two California plaintiffs say that certification is basically made up — and that the tomatoes inside the can don't actually deliver what the label promises in terms of taste, consistency, or quality.

What Makes a Tomato a San Marzano Tomato

There's only one place in the world where real San Marzano tomatoes grow — a small volcanic region in southern Italy called Campania, about 22 miles outside Naples. The soil there is different. The climate is different. The tomatoes that come out of that specific ground are different from tomatoes grown anywhere else, which is why people care so much about them.

It's not just food snobbery either. San Marzano tomatoes have official protected status in the European Union — the same kind of legal protection that means you can't call something Champagne if it didn't come from the Champagne region of France, or Parmigiano-Reggiano if it wasn't made in the right part of Italy. The name is legally tied to the place.

There's even an official Italian consortium — Il Consorzio di Tutela del Pomodoro San Marzano DOP — that exists specifically to verify whether tomatoes claiming to be San Marzanos are actually from the right region and actually meet the right standards. They're basically the tomato police. If you want to sell something as a certified San Marzano in the traditional sense, you go through them.

The Part Where It Gets Interesting

Cento says they stopped working with the official consortium back in the 2010s because of a disagreement over labeling requirements. Their tomatoes are now certified by a different third-party agency called Agri-Cert instead, which they say uses strict guidelines. They also let customers trace exactly where their tomatoes were grown by using a code printed on the can.

The lawsuit tells a completely different version of that story. According to the plaintiffs, Cento didn't walk away from the consortium. They got thrown out — ejected for committing fraud.

Those are two very different things. One is a business disagreement. The other is an allegation that goes right to the heart of whether the product is what it says it is. A court is going to have to sort out which version is true.

Cento's lawyer said the whole lawsuit is "entirely without merit" and the company plans to fight it aggressively including seeking prompt dismissal. They've actually been here before — a similar lawsuit was filed against them in New York back in 2019 making comparable claims about the San Marzano labeling. They won that one.

The Problem Nobody Talks About

Here's the thing that makes this case bigger than just one brand. The amount of canned tomatoes sold in the US every year under San Marzano labeling is believed to be way more than could realistically be grown in that small stretch of southern Italy. The actual growing area is limited. The demand for the product is enormous. Those two facts don't add up — which means a lot of what gets sold as San Marzano tomatoes probably isn't from there.

That's an industry-wide issue that goes beyond Cento. But Cento is the name on the can that millions of Americans reach for, which is why they're the ones in court right now.

If you've been paying extra for San Marzano tomatoes because you believed the label — you're not alone and you're not crazy for caring. Whether this lawsuit actually changes anything is a different question. But round two of tomato court is underway and this time it's in California.

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