Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Customers not only accepted this Dutch fruit; they actively sought it out. While Amer-
ican fresh tomato prices at wholesale hovered around 25 cents a pound, Dutch tomatoes
averaged 80 cents. The effect on American growers was immediate and drastic. From
1992 to 1995 the wholesale price of domestic tomatoes dropped for three straight years,
falling a total of almost one third. Within five years tomato imports tripled and domest-
ic production declined by 20 percent. Florida, which had concentrated on winter-grown
mature-greens, had to cut back its harvest by 40 percent.
Grown in hothouses, these new tomatoes could be lavished with the kind of care that
resulted in fruit with something approaching real flavor. And they came in more colors
and shapes than the typical red and round. Using tomato varieties developed primarily by
Israeli breeders, the Dutch supplied American shoppers with squat tomatoes, yellow to-
matoes and pear-shaped tomatoes. Most impor tant (commercially anyway), some of these
tomatoes were sold still clustered on the vine. The tomatoes themselves might not actually
have had more flavor than other tomatoes, but they sure smelled as if they did to shoppers.
Tomato greens are extremely aromatic - maybe even more so than the fruit - and much
of what we remember as a fresh tomato's perfume is actually the smell of the vines and
leaves.
Developed in Italy and enthusiastically embraced by Dutch greenhouse growers, toma-
toes on the vine (known in the industry as TOV) became an important category within
only a few years. By 1999 tomatoes on the vine accounted for 13 percent of all greenhouse
tomatoes sold in the United States, and by 2003 they represented almost a quarter.
Although this slight increase in variety hardly seems revolutionary today, it was a grand
start considering the time and place. Produce managers quickly found that offering an as-
sortment of tomatoes increased the sales not just of the new types but of the old ones as
well. Consumers, it seems, like to have options - even if they often end up buying the same
old thing. The produce section with the greatest assortment of products is the one that is
judged the best. This started a veritable tomato arms race among highend supermarkets.
Grocery stores that not long before had carried three or four types of tomatoes suddenly
were carrying eight or nine. And some ultra-ambitious retailers were advertising as many
as twenty-two different types of tomatoes.
As radical as this seemed, it was really only the first step. In 1997 hothouse tomatoes
- buzz-worthy though they were - generated only about 7 percent of retail tomato sales in
the United States. And considering the cost of transporting fresh produce from Holland, it
was unlikely that Dutch tomatoes would ever be more than an attractive niche item.
