Tomatoes are currently booming: We therefore take a look at the topic of Brix (content). Brix is an important quality characteristic for our tomato products, but not everyone is familiar with it. The Brix value is given in degrees Brix (°Bx) and is a unit of measurement for the relative density of liquids. It indicates how much dissolved sugar there is in a liquid solution and is determined using a refractometer. In the food industry, the refractometer is mainly used in the wine, fruit, vegetable and beverage industries for quality control to measure the sugar content. The hand-held devices used enable quick, simple and reliable measurement. For example, 25 °Bx means that 100 g of a solution contains 25 g of sugar. A fresh sun-ripened tomato from the field usually has a natural Brix content of between 4.8 - 5.0 °Bx.

The higher the Brix content, the "higher quality" the product is for the chef. The cook does not have to boil down the tomatoes for their sauce or add tomato paste to obtain a creamy end product. Every amateur cook knows this: when fresh tomatoes are pureed or chopped and simmered over a medium heat, water evaporates and after a while we get a creamy tomato sauce. The longer you boil them down, the higher the Brix content becomes.

A thickened juice (tomato puree with approx. 7.5 °Brix) is added to PMM's whole, peeled tomatoes (2650 ml tin) during production. Both together, the natural sweetness of the tomato and that of the puree, result in a finished product with approx. 6 - 6.5 °Bx. This is a Brix content that is wonderful to work with in the professional kitchen. Speaking of tomato puree, 3-fold concentrated: With this PMM product, we arrive at a very high content of 36 - 38 °Bx. Here it is important to pay particular attention to quality and balance during production so that the fruitiness and sweetness of the flavour is not lost with such a high concentration. By the way: Wine lovers will certainly be familiar with the Oechsle degree, a physical unit of measurement that belongs to the density range. It indicates the must weight of the unfermented grape must. The must weight, in turn, is the measure of the dissolved substances - especially the sugar - in the must. This allows the potential alcohol content of the final wine to be determined.