The bench · Tinned tomatoes
Tinned tomatoes for pizza, compared
The one ingredient that goes on raw. Nothing you do in the oven will fix a bad tin.
Pizza sauce is usually just tomatoes and salt, uncooked, so the tin is the recipe. Nine here from £1.88 to £10.13 a kilo, every figure read from the retailer’s own page. Two things separate them and neither is the brand on the front: what the declaration actually counts as “tomatoes”, and whether “San Marzano” on the label means the protected designation or just the seed.
We have not tasted these. Every figure below is quoted from the seller’s own page and dated. No tin here has been through our bench, so there are no verdicts of ours — only what is printed, plus any published taste test we could find. Tomatoes are the next thing we test after dough. One tin that beat Mutti Polpa in that taste test, Tarantella Organic Chopped, is not in the table: it has been delisted by Ocado and was out of stock at every UK retailer we checked in September 2026, so we could not verify a price or a working link for it.
About the ratings on this page. We have not tested these. Where a seller publishes a customer rating we record it per source, with the count and the month checked — never blended, and never used to order the table. Where a maker publishes no product rating we record their company-wide score instead and label it as such — a Trustpilot score measures delivery and service, not whether the food is any good. Counts under about 20 are marked as too thin to judge. We publish nothing of our own until we have bought the product and cooked with it twice; where we have, the row carries our verdict and who wrote it. Our method.
| Tomato | Format | Declared | Origin | Size | Per kg |
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| Napolina Chopped Tomatoes (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-01 | Chopped | 99.9% | Italy | 400g £0.75 was £1.00 |
£1.88 |
Not recommended Ingredients, ratings and our verdict
Tomatoes 99.9% (Chopped, Juice), Acidity Regulator: Citric Acid. The cheapest tin here by a distance and, on the declaration alone, among the highest tomato content. The 99.9% covers chopped tomato and juice together, so it is not comparable with a tin that declares the solid fraction separately — see the finding below. Our verdict — bought, cooked with, eaten A dull colour out of the tin rather than the bright red you want, too watery for an uncooked pizza sauce, and bitty with it. I have always had to add sugar to make it palatable, which tells you it is coming out of the tin bitter. It is the cheapest tin here by a distance and for a long-cooked ragu that may be all you need — but pizza sauce goes on raw, so there is nothing to hide behind. This is also the tin that best shows why the front-of-pack percentage is worthless on its own. It declares 99.9% tomato, the highest number on this table, and it is the one we would least want on a pizza. The 99.9% counts the juice along with the solids. See the finding below. Simon Bell · September 2026 · how we test Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
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| Cirio Italian Chopped Tomatoes (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-02 | Chopped | 65% solids | Italy | 400g £1.30 |
£3.25 |
Ingredients and ratings
Chopped Tomatoes 65%, Tomato Juice, Acidity Regulator: Citric Acid, Salt. One of only two tins here that separate the solid tomato from the juice — 65% chopped, the rest juice. Biona is the other, at 60%. That looks worse than Napolina’s 99.9% and probably is not — Cirio are declaring the split that the others fold into one figure. More honest labelling reads as a worse product, which is the problem with this whole category. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
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| Our pick. Our pick. Mutti Polpa Finely Chopped (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-03 | Polpa | 99.8% | Italy | 6 × 400g £9.80 £1.63 a tin |
£4.08 |
Ingredients, ratings, press and our verdict
Tomatoes 99.8%, Salt. Two ingredients, tomato and salt, with no acidity regulator. Stated as 100% Italian tomatoes from certified production. Sold here in a six-pack; the per-tin price is ours, the pack price is theirs. Our verdict — bought, cooked with, eaten My pick of the tins, and the one I use. Being a polpa it arrives at the right consistency already — thick without being watery, so it goes on the base as it is, with no reducing and no draining. It opens a bright, vivid red, it smells right, and it tastes sweet and properly tomatoey with none of the bitterness you get from a thinner tin. It is the only one here I have never had to correct with sugar. Worth knowing that the one published taste test we found disagrees. olive magazine scored this 7/10 in 2021 and put two organic tins above it, both of which are now on this table. We are keeping their verdict on the row underneath ours. Uncooked sauce is a matter of taste as much as quality, and you should see both. Simon Bell · September 2026 · how we test Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
Press verdicts — who actually tested it
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| Mutti Peeled Plum Tomatoes (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-04 | Whole peeled | — | Italy | 400g £1.65 |
£4.13 |
Ingredients and ratings
Peeled Tomato, Tomato Juice. Two ingredients, no salt, no acidity regulator — the shortest declaration in the category. Whole peeled means you crush them yourself, which is what most Neapolitan recipes assume. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
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| Waitrose San Marzano Tomatoes (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-05 | Whole peeled | Not published | Spain & UK | 400g £2.50 |
£6.25 |
Ingredients and ratings
Full ingredients not published by the brand Sold as San Marzano, with a description that says the variety “originate from the province of Naples, and were first grown beneath the slopes of Mount Vesuvius”. The country of origin field on the same page reads “Spain (incl Canary & Balearic Is.)” and “United Kingdom”. No DOP claim is made, and none could be. San Marzano is a variety as well as a protected designation, and growing it in Spain is entirely legal — but the copy invokes Vesuvius and the origin field says Spain, and most shoppers read the first and not the second. No ingredients are published at all. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
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| Mutti San Marzano Peeled P.D.O. (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-06 | Whole peeled | — | Italy · DOP | 400g £4.05 |
£10.13 |
Ingredients and ratings
Whole Peeled San Marzano Tomatoes, San Marzano Tomato Juice. The only tin here carrying genuine protected designation. Two ingredients, both San Marzano. At £10.13 a kilo it is five times the Napolina and 62% dearer than the Waitrose tin that uses the same variety name without the protection. Whether it is five times the tomato is a question for the bench, not the label. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
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| Casalinga Chopped Tomatoes (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-07 | Chopped | Not published | Italy | 400g £1.45 |
£3.63 |
Ingredients, ratings and press
Chopped Tomatoes, Tomato Juice, Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid). Joint winner of the one published UK taste test we found, yet it declares no tomato percentage and adds an acidity regulator that Mutti Polpa does without. Ocado shoppers rate it below Mutti. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
Press verdicts — who actually tested it
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| Mr Organic Italian Chopped Tomatoes (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-08 | Chopped | Not published | Italy | 400g £1.70 |
£4.25 |
Ingredients, ratings and press
Italian Sun-Ripened Chopped Tomatoes and Tomato Juice, All from Italian organic agriculture. The other joint winner, and one of only four tins here with nothing added at all — no acidity regulator, no salt. Organic. Its 3.9 from 81 Ocado reviews is the lowest customer score on this table, which is the sharpest disagreement between a tasting panel and shoppers that we have found anywhere on this site. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
Press verdicts — who actually tested it
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| Biona Organic Chopped Peeled Tomatoes (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)TM-09 | Chopped | 60% | Italy | 400g £1.75 |
£4.38 |
Ingredients, ratings and press
Chopped Peeled Tomatoes* (60%), Tomato Juice*, *= Certified Organic ingredients. Organic, nothing added, and the lowest declared solid fraction on this table at 60% — four tins in ten is juice. Like Cirio, it counts only the solids, so it cannot be compared with Napolina’s 99.9%. It scored the same 7/10 as Mutti Polpa in the taste test while costing more per kg. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026
Press verdicts — who actually tested it
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Finding 007 · Tomatoes
The percentage on a tin of tomatoes cannot be compared with the percentage on the tin beside it.
Napolina declare “Tomatoes 99.9% (Chopped, Juice)”. Cirio declare “Chopped Tomatoes 65%, Tomato Juice”. Those two tins may contain almost exactly the same thing. Napolina are counting the solids and the juice together; Cirio are telling you how much of it is solid. The brand that labels more carefully looks like the worse buy.
The figure that would settle it is drained weight, and not one of the nine tins here publishes it. Until a producer does, nobody can honestly tell you which tin gives you the most tomato, and anybody ranking them on the front-of-pack percentage is comparing two different measurements.
All declarations and prices read from the retailer’s own product page on 7 September 2026. We have written to ask for drained weights and will publish them as they arrive.
Finding 008 · Tomatoes
A tin can say San Marzano, describe Vesuvius, and come from Spain.
San Marzano is two things: a tomato variety anyone may grow, and San Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP, a protected designation covering a specific area near Naples. Only the second is regulated.
The Waitrose tin is labelled San Marzano and its description reads: the variety “originate from the province of Naples, and were first grown beneath the slopes of Mount Vesuvius”. The country of origin on the same page is Spain (incl Canary & Balearic Is.) and the United Kingdom. It makes no DOP claim, and it does not have to — nothing here is against the rules. But a shopper reading about Vesuvius is unlikely to scroll to the origin field, and at £6.25 a kilo they may believe they are buying something they are not.
Mutti’s San Marzano P.D.O. tin, at £10.13 a kilo, is the only one here with the protection. If the designation matters to you, look for the letters, not the name.
Read from each retailer’s own product page on 7 September 2026 and verified on a second reading. We asked Waitrose to comment before publishing.
Finding 009 · Delivered dough
Where you live decides whether you can buy this at all — and almost nobody says so on the product page.
We read the shipping terms for all eighteen brands that post dough balls, looking for one thing the comparison sites never carry: what happens if your postcode is not in mainland Britain. The answer is that a third of this market either will not serve you or charges you more, and you will not learn which until checkout.
Will not deliver
Northern Ireland or the islands
Dough Dorks ships to England, Wales and “main parts of Scotland” only — Northern Ireland excluded outright. North Yorks Pizza House and Fuego are UK mainland only, Fuego also excluding parts of northern Scotland. Great Balls of Flour excludes the Channel Islands, Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, Scottish Islands and some IV postcodes.
Will deliver, for a price
Surcharges you meet at checkout
Ooni advertises free delivery on every order, then adds £50 to Northern Ireland orders over 30kg and excludes the Highlands, Islands, Isle of Man and Scilly from express. Outi Pizza adds a £10 handling charge to the Highlands and Islands. Woody Oven warns that “exception postcodes” cost more without saying which, or how much.
The exception is worth naming. Great Balls of Flour is the only brand on this table that states plainly that it delivers to Northern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands at standard UK rates. Everyone else either stays silent, hides the surcharge in a shipping policy two clicks from the basket, or — in Fuego’s case — publishes its charges in a PDF whose link returns a 404.
None of this is against the rules, and a courier really does charge more to reach Stornoway. What is hard to defend is advertising “free UK delivery” on a product page and disclosing the £50 somewhere else. If you are outside mainland Britain, the honest advice is to put a box in the basket and go to the payment step before you decide anything, on any of these sites.
Shipping terms read from each brand’s own delivery or shipping-policy page on 8 September 2026. Delivita’s policy page blocks automated reading, so its regional terms are not recorded here. Massarella’s and Bertha’s publish no delivery page we could find.
What we would put on a pizza
Nothing, until we have tasted them. What the declarations tell you is narrower: four of the nine add an acidity regulator or salt, four add nothing at all, one does not publish its declaration, and only one carries a protected designation. A Neapolitan sauce is crushed tomato and salt with no cooking, so anything the tin adds ends up on the pizza. When the bench is free after the dough, this is the next category through it — blind, same base, same oven, same weight of sauce.
Common questions about tinned tomatoes for pizza
Which tinned tomatoes are best for pizza?
Pizza sauce goes on raw, so the tin is the recipe and there is nothing to hide behind. A polpa arrives at the right consistency already, so it needs no reducing or draining. Of the nine tins here, four declare nothing but tomato — no acidity regulator and no salt — while four add a regulator, salt or both. Our own verdict is on the table above, along with the one published UK taste test we could find, which disagrees with us.
What does the percentage on a tin of tomatoes actually mean?
Not what most shoppers think, and it cannot be compared between tins. One tin here declares 99.9% counting the chopped tomato and the juice together; another declares 65%, counting only the solids with the juice listed separately. Those two tins may hold almost the same thing, and the one that labels more carefully looks like the worse buy. The figure that would settle it is drained weight, and not one of the nine tins here publishes it.
Is San Marzano worth paying for?
Only if it is the protected designation rather than the name. San Marzano is two things: a tomato variety anyone may grow anywhere, and San Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP, which covers a specific area near Naples. Just one tin on this table carries the protection, at five times the price of the cheapest. Another is labelled San Marzano, describes Vesuvius in its product copy, and states Spain as a country of origin. Look for the letters DOP or PDO, not the name.
Do you need to cook pizza sauce first?
For a Neapolitan, no. The sauce is crushed tomato and salt, spread raw, and it cooks in the 60 to 90 seconds the pizza is in the oven. That is exactly why the tin matters so much more here than it does in a ragu: a thin, bitter or watery tomato that a long simmer would fix has nowhere to go on a pizza, and a tin that needs sugar adding is telling you something.