Dinner table staple tomato ketchup is under threat from climate change, scientists have warned.
The bottled sauce adored by Brits for dolloping on food from fish and chips to burgers and hotdogs could fall foul of higher temperatures which will hammer harvests and lead to worldwide shortages.
Tomato paste and tinned tomatoes - both vital ingredients for family favourites including bolognese sauce, chilli con carne, casseroles and stews - are also at risk of becoming luxuries.
According to research by a team from Aarhus University in Denmark, “processing tomatoes” grown in direct sunlight for food firms to turn into products including tomato sauce could become scare as global warming is predicted to ruin crops and halve production this century.
For while higher temperatures speed up the growth of plants, they also reduce the time needed for fruit to develop and this in turn reduces the yield.
In a report published in journal Nature Food, the boffins say that rising temperatures could cut production by 6% by 2050 but by 50% between 2050 and 2100.
Describing processing tomatoes as “important because they are used for tomato paste, tomato sauce, ketchup and other tomato-derived products”, the study used a mathematical model to see how different climate change scenarios would affect crops.
And in a doomwatch case, a temperature increase in 11 major tomato-producing regions of 2.6C between 2040 and 2069, and 5C between 2070-2099 would see the harvest halved.
Two thirds of the world’s 180 million tonnes of tomatoes grown every year come from California, China and Italy and scientists fear California and Italy would be hardest hit by their predictions.
The report said: “All cultures have an optimum temperature at which optimal development occurs.
“However, above this threshold temperature, the aging process accelerates, which negatively affects the yield.
“The future viability of tomato processing is different for each region.
“China will be one of the regions projected to be able to maintain a viable production of processing tomatoes but California and Italy will be negatively impacted by the projected changes.”
Salad tomatoes, however, are grown in a controlled environment and are not at risk, the study found.
