LIFE FOR SALE: THE BIRTH OF LIFE SCIENCE COMPANIES - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 142

marketed with the trademarked name MacGregor tomatoes and grown from Flavr Savr seeds. Genetically
engineered tomatoes were a big flop, in part because the company did not start with seeds from flavorful
tomatoes and use traditional breeding methods to improve them. While the tomatoes had a long shelf life,
they did not remain firm if they were picked after turning red and so still required harvesting while green.
Former Calgene scientist Belinda Martineau writes: “Instead of taking a generous bite out of the $4 billion
U.S. retail market for fresh tomatoes, Calgene suffered negative gross margins in its tomato business that
led to losses to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year. The Flavr Savr gene was, in the end, of only
marginal value to a fresh market tomato business. Less than two years after its national rollout, the Flavr
Savr tomato forever disappeared from the supermarket shelves.” 11
GE tomatoes for food processing and paste were a failure as well. Calgene and the British company
Zeneca, which was also funded by Campbell's Soup, worked out a legal arrangement for developing GE
tomatoes. While Calgene developed those for the fresh market, Zeneca created tomatoes for use in com-
mercial food processing. After FDA approval, the tomatoes were sold at a lower price and advertised as
genetically engineered, but consumer acceptance was low, and as a result neither tomato is on the market
today. 12
Monsanto's Acquisitions Through Time
The cost of the failed tomato project was high for Calgene. As Monsanto began to turn itself into a life
sciences company, shedding its chemical businesses, it acquired its first stake in the company in 1996 and
bought the remaining shares in 1997. Monsanto wanted ownership of Calgene's research into genetically
modified oils, cotton, and fresh produce.
This important acquisition by Monsanto was part of the biotech merger mania of the 1990s. The industry
grew and developed through mergers, acquisitions, and alliances that involved biotech research firms, seed