Cherry tomatoes from Sedo-myeon in Buyeo, South Chungcheong, are putting on a "sweet taste" and transforming into a new product. The stevia tomato "Danmato" project that Sedo NongHyup launched last year posted sales of 3.2 billion won in its first year. This year's goal is 6 billion won.
The local agricultural cooperative, which had only received tomatoes from farms, sorted them, and sold them, has jumped into a business that directly processes them and puts a brand on them to raise added value.
Southeastern Buyeo, where Sedo NongHyup is located, is a major tomato-producing area bordering Nonsan Ganggyeong and Iksan along the Geum River. Last year, Sedo NongHyup's tomato sales volume was 5,528 tons, up 30.2% from 2024 (4,246 tons). Tomato sales through the Sedo NongHyup distribution center also reached 28.3 billion won last year.
Sedo NongHyup went a step further. It invested about 900 million won to build a stevia tomato processing facility and began in-house processing last year. Sedo NongHyup head Cho Nam-yeop said, "We set this year's Danmato sales target at 6 billion won," and noted, "If local agricultural cooperatives process and distribute directly, the added value of agricultural products can remain in the region."
◇Removing the stem and pressurizing… infusing tomatoes with sweetness
At the Sedo NongHyup distribution center visited on the 27th, sorting was in full swing for tomatoes that had just arrived from farms. Some of the tomatoes selected by size and condition were packed as regular cherry tomatoes, while others headed to the adjacent stevia processing facility.
The process of making stevia tomatoes was unexpectedly simple. Good-quality tomatoes are selected, washed, and de-stemmed. The tomatoes are then placed in a pressurizing chamber that looks like a large pressure cooker and pressurized for a set time together with sweetened water containing stevia components. In this process, sweet components seep into the tomatoes through areas where the stems were removed and the like.
The processed tomatoes were packaged immediately. Workers filled containers with tomatoes to match the weight and shipped them in 500-gram units.
Stevia delivers a sweetness much stronger than sugar while being low in calories, so it is used as a sugar substitute sweetener. Applied to tomatoes, it reduces their characteristic sourness and enhances sweetness—these are stevia tomatoes. On the market, they are sold under various names such as "Tomango," "Sweetmato," and "Danmato."
There are drawbacks. Because they undergo processing such as pressurization, they require more careful storage and distribution than regular tomatoes. The Ministery of Food and Drug Safety also guides that stevia tomatoes must be stored as indicated and consumed within the expiration date.
◇NongHyup that sold produce expands to processing and branding
Hygiene control is also a key task. The Ministery of Food and Drug Safety recently collected and tested 18 stevia tomato products on the market and found E. coli exceeding standards in some products.
Sedo NongHyup is putting effort into hygiene control at its processing facility. A Sedo NongHyup official said, "We scored 92 out of 100 in a hygiene evaluation related to the Ministery of Food and Drug Safety," and added, "Because this is a processed food, we consider hygiene control in the production process the most important."
In the region, there are expectations that farm income will increase as the Danmato business grows. As sales of stevia tomatoes rise, demand for cherry tomatoes used as raw materials will also increase.
For NongHyup as well, the business model has changed. In the past, most of the work involved receiving tomatoes from farms, sorting them, and selling them; now the scope has expanded to directly processing them, turning them into in-house branded products, and distributing them.
Cho said, "The most important role of a local agricultural cooperative is to sell the agricultural products that farmers produce at good prices," and added, "Our goal is not to stop at simply selling tomatoes but to expand the share that goes back to farms through processing and branding."