Pain au chocolat or chocolatine? Milk before or after cereals? To these long-lasting dilemmas we add the tomato, a fruit or a vegetable?
To better understand this dilemma, we will first distinguish between culinary and botanical classification.
In the kitchen, the classification system for fruits and vegetables changes considerably compared to their botanical classification.
In fact, in our kitchens, the tomato is a vegetable because, due to its flavour profile, which is more salty than sweet, it is more easily found in dishes than in desserts, whereas a fruit has a soft texture and tends to be sweeter.
As you can see, there has always been a debate about tomatoes, but Customs had to decide: In the nomenclature, tomatoes are listed in Chapter 7 of vegetables (0702 tomatoes, fresh or chilled). It seems that customs officers are more like cooks than botanists.
However, tomatoes can also be classified in chapter 20 “Preparation of vegetables, fruit or other parts of plants” where we find processed or preserved tomatoes, or in chapter 21 if we talk about ketchup or other tomato sauces.
The difference will be significant in terms of customs duty, because for the vegetable chapter (chapter 07) we will have a common external tariff per hectogram, whereas for chapter 20 or 21 the CET will be expressed in %.
As you can see, sometimes classification can be more complicated than it seems. That is why it is important to have a wide knowledge of the product, to have customs expertise and therefore experts, but also to have tools that allow you to easily and quickly reach a decision on customs classification.
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