Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Nurseries
Growers
Wholesalers
Retailers
Consumers
Fig. 14.2
Supply chain for tomatoes in the Netherlands
Case Study in the Tomato Supply Chain
The Tomato Supply Chain
The supply chain for fresh tomato starts with nurseries that produce young plants
from hybrid cultivars. Growers will deliver tomato fruit (sometimes as part of a
grower association), to wholesalers or, direct to retailers. Tomatoes are harvested
after reaching the breaker stage of ripening (Schouten et al.
2007a
). They are then
stored and transported. The period of storage and transport is kept to a minimum
given the constraints of the logistics of large quantities and market demand. Su-
permarkets are the main distribution channels of vegetables, with a market share
of 85 %. The period between moment of harvest and positioning in the retail shelf
for sale generally varies between 2 and 10 days. Retail managers try to procure
amounts that can be preferably sold within one day. The last chain actor is the con-
sumer. Figure
14.2
shows a typical tomato supply chain in The Netherlands.
Tomato Quality
In practice, color and firmness of tomatoes in the shelves varies considerably over
time. Also the taste can vary from acceptable to far below acceptability (Bruhn et al.
1991
) even within the same cultivar and origin of production. This leads to com-
plaints from consumers and retail managers about insufficient quality (van Kooten
2006
). Growers associations produce tomatoes with differences in quality due to
differences between individual growers and between batches of one grower. Current
practice in the horticultural chain is to harvest tomatoes after they reach the breaker
stage and transport them at the prescribed temperature of 12 °C to slow down ripen-
ing while also avoiding chilling injury. This may result in an insufficient color (pink
color stage) and firmness (too firm) at the moment of consumption. On the other
hand, when tomatoes are harvested and transported over long distances or stored too
long in retail shops, firmness can become a limiting quality attribute, now due to
tomatoes being too soft. In other words: the quality attributes of both color and firm-
ness are of importance for consumers (Tijskens and Evelo
1994
) and thus determine
the willingness to buy and consequently the price settings.
