In 2015, it’s believed that almost 145,000kg of tomatoes were used in the festival. Source: aaroncorey, flickr.
The tomato throwing festival has returned to the streets of Bunol, Valencia in epic style after the event was cancelled the past two years due to COVID-19.
Around 20,000 people took to the streets and hurled more than 130 tonnes of bright red tomatoes at each other for over an hour.
The event has become so popular in recent times, that organisers have to put a limit on the amount of people who can be involved, while also charging 12 Euro to each person who wants to be part of the festivities.
For over 70 years the celebration has been held on the last Wednesday of August in the town of Bunol, Valencia which sits in the east of Spain about 30km from the Mediterranean.
Starting at 9am, a ham hoisted on top a greasy pole- known as the palo-jabon-makes its way into the Plaza del Pueblo, the main square of Bunol.
Eager festival goers have two hours to try and climb the pole and grab the ham, but regardless of whether they do or not, at 11 am the tomato throwing begins.
A single firework is set off to signal to the trucks to start proceedings down the streets, where workers sitting in the truck begin throwing tomatoes at the people below.
Sometimes locals in the above apartments like to get in on the action and throw some tomatoes but everything comes to an end when a second firework goes off.
The origins of this famed festival are quite interesting.
In 1945, a fight broke out in the town square and bungled up in the fight was a vegetable stall that had tomatoes. The young people in the fight grabbed the tomatoes and started throwing them in the fight, which was later broken up by police.
However the following year, the boys returned with their own tomatoes and carried out a food fight that over time had more and more people involved.
La Tomatina was briefly banned in the early 50s because it didn’t carry any religious significance but was later brought back after residents buried their tomatoes in protest.
