What is La Tomatina Festival and How Many Tomatoes Are Wasted During It?

An hour-long battle with ripe tomatoes that turns the town of Buñol into a unique setting, where everything, things and people, turns bright red. It is La Tomatina, a famous popular tradition typical of Buñol, in the Valencian Community: a ritual that has been repeated since 1945 and that has been interrupted several times, due to restrictions and fascist laws. A tradition that has often met with criticism from environmentalists, even if wrongly: today we tell you how the Tomatina of Buñol takes place and why, like many traditions of the kind, it does not involve any waste of food, contrary to popular belief.

What is Tomatina, Exactly?

La Tomatina was born in 1945, during the festival of Giants and Big Heads, another popular tradition that is common to many European countries, including ours. It seems that during the celebrations a fight broke out between young people who, unable to use other tools, began to throw tomatoes found on the stalls, using them as weapons. The police dispersed the demonstrators and the matter seemed to end there. But the next day the young people returned to fight with tomatoes, this time bringing them from home, just like they do with weapons and ammunition. The conflict between the authorities and the young people, who had by then transformed a fight into a celebration, lasted for a few years until, from 1957 onwards, the authorities began to support the now established initiative: since 1980 it is the municipality that supplies the products for the battle, which takes place on the last Wednesday of August, during the period in which the country is celebrating. This year, therefore, La Tomatina takes place today, August 28th.

However, La Tomatina was opposed on several occasions, for example during the years of Franco's regime and, in particular in the 50s and 60s, there were also several arrests for having organized it clandestinely. After the dictator's death in 1975, the festival was celebrated again every year and with increasing attendance.

What are The Rules of La Tomatina?

La Tomatina is a battle that has been going on for 78 years with very specific rules. In the morning, trucks bring tomatoes for the battle that starts at 12 and lasts only an hour: even in this case, participants must respect some rules to avoid hurting others or creating too much inconvenience for the country.

In particular:

• Tomatoes must be ripe and adequately crushed before they are thrown.
• It is severely prohibited to throw tomatoes in the faces of other participants.
• It is forbidden to break or throw T-shirts and other objects, damage things and elements of the urban structure of the city.
• You must not bring bottles or, in general, objects that could cause accidents and damage. Backpacks are also prohibited during the event.
• Participants are advised to wear old clothes as they may be unusable after the party.
• The use of swimming goggles is suggested to prevent tomato juice from getting into your eyes.

In 2023, over 20.000 people fought each other during the festival, using about 150.000 tomatoes. Should we consider this a waste of perfectly good food?

Do Tomatoes During La Tomatina Get Wasted?

Well, technically, as surprising as it might sound, the answer is no! What many people don't know is that the tomatoes used for La Tomatina are grown specifically in Extremadura and in Xilxes, in the province of Castellón: it is a special variety with a not particularly appetizing taste that is left to ripen for a long time precisely to have the right consistency for the battle. It is a crop that was created specifically and that gives work to many people: these tomatoes, without their celebration, simply wouldn't exist. Or rather, the crops wouldn't exist and the variety would probably have been supplanted by varieties intended for human consumption, probably disappearing.