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Garden Gate:  Ye Gads! The price of Tomatoes?  |
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melody
True Blue Farmgirl
3338 Posts
Melody
The Great North Woods in the Land of Hiawatha
USA
3338 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 12 2010 : 09:39:30 AM
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Here is a clip---
Typically a standard garnish for hamburgers, sandwiches and salads, tomatoes have become a scarce luxury.
Three out of five round, field-grown tomatoes come from Florida during the winter, but an unexpected and prolonged cold spell that froze Florida's crops in mid-January wiped out most of the state's tomato crop.
With less of the vine-ripened produce available, fast-food chains and grocery stores have been scrambling to get a hold of what they can for a much steeper price.
Restaurant chain Wendy's, for one, began warning customers a week ago that if they didn't request a tomato slice, they wouldn't get one.
The cost of tomatoes has been "substantial,"said Denny Lynch, Wendy's spokesman, refusing to say how much exactly. The biggest issue has been sheer supply, because getting any tomatoes at any cost has been a challenge, he said.
Tomato shipments from Florida were down 80 percent during the last week of January while imports from Mexico were up 32 percent. Total tomato supply was still down 14 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The price of fresh tomatoes bought at grocery stores was up compared with the same week a year prior, about $1.98 per pound compared with $1.29 per pound.
The California-based Stater Bros. supermarket chain has been paying a third more than it usually would for tomatoes, and company chairman Jack Brown said he expected to raise prices by the end of the week.
Ripe tomatoes are being left to rot in the dirt in a Florida field, decimated by a surprisingly bitter frost.
In January, farmers sold their tomatoes for about 58 cents per pound, nearly double the price during the same month the previous year. USDA economists don't have the data for February and March yet, but they expect to see that prices have risen higher than 58 cents per pound in those months.
"We can't afford to sell tomatoes under cost," Brown said. He said his San Bernardino-based company has been, and is expected to continue, getting their tomatoes from Florida, but if the supply was diminished any more he could look elsewhere.
Harvests in California don't begin until May, but by that time, there shouldn't be a shortage.
After the freeze swept through most of the crop in January, Florida farmers planted more tomato plants to make up for the losses. Those plants are expected to be harvested by mid-April.
Personally I don't care for tomatoes but I do plant them every year because mine happen grow to nuclear size next to my garage. And, my relatives LOVE fresh tomatoes. My soil is very conducive to growing tomatoes! Last year I was able to harvest over 65 medium to large tomatoes on each plant....
Guess I will be planting a few more this spring! 
"The best mirror is an old friend."
- George Herbert
Melody
Farmgirl #525
www.melodynotes-melodynotes.blogspot.com
www.lemonverbenasoap.etsy.com
www.longtallsallys.etsy.com
www.andsewitgoes.etsy.com |
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Lessie Louise
True Blue Farmgirl
1406 Posts
Carol
PECULIAR
MO
USA
1406 Posts |
Posted - Mar 12 2010 : 10:14:22 AM
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I dried several pounds of tomatoes last summer, and while you can't put them in a salad, reconstituded they still taste fresh in other dishes. I'm glad to have them now!!
Forget buns of steel, I'd rather have buns of cinnamon!
Farmgirl #680! |
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Annab
True Blue Farmgirl
2900 Posts
Anna
Seagrove
NC
USA
2900 Posts |
Posted - Mar 13 2010 : 03:38:22 AM
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Yea!
We usually plant about 50-75 in the hopes that at least some will make it.
Last year's home grown crop was pathetic too.
Think we'll baby what we can get this year and perhaps try and put a few more up!
And I have noticed at Wendy's especially a note about not getting them in.
Really, that's ok since they usually taste like styrofoam and I end up picking it off anyway. It ought to be by serious request for the short term, that's for sure!
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LBP
True Blue Farmgirl
81 Posts
Linda
Goodview
VA
USA
81 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2010 : 05:10:36 AM
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| I hate to hear about that, even though I don't usually eat tomatoes out at a restaurant. Not a hand of greenhouse tomatoes. However I can't wait until I can get a fresh one from my garden! I canned 27 courts last year and we had eaten them all by January! My tomatoe plants are coming along nicely in the greenhouse, hoping for a bymper crop! |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2010 : 08:22:50 AM
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I love fresh tomatoes and I am sure glad I grow them in my garden. I started my seeds yesterday (can't put them outside until mother's day here) 15 varieties of just tomatoes this year...6 of each started. I will plan about 40 plants in my garden and share the other plants.I just couldn't narrow it down to less varieties. I agree that the store tomatoes taste just awful. Well, really they just taste like nothing. ick. I can hardly wait to the first ripe garden tomato of the year. I canned ALOT of tomatoes this past summer, which is sure nice to have on hand. NOthing like a fresh sunwarmed tomato for taste though.
Jenny in Utah
Proud Farmgirl sister #24
Inside me there is a skinny woman crying to get out...but I can usually shut her up with cookies
http://www.auntjennysworld.blogspot.com/ visit my little online shop at www.auntjenny.etsy.com |
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graciegreeneyes
True Blue Farmgirl
3107 Posts
Amy Grace
Rosalia
WA
USA
3107 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2010 : 08:50:35 AM
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I so agree - the supermarket tomatoes don't even come close. I was buying a tomato the other day - I know, why bother, it's March - and was reduced to smelling them to see if they smelled anything like tomatoes. The hothouse ones actually did a little, but not like garden-fresh. The produce guy was just laughing at me:) I wouldn't have bothered but I found a recipe that called for 8 eggs (We have a lot of eggs in the fridge, what with our happy chickens) and you cook the tomato anyway so I figured what the heck...
Anyway, I will definitely be growing my own this summer
Amy Grace
Farmgirl #224
"use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without"
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prairie_princess
True Blue Farmgirl
613 Posts
Elizabeth
Carpenter
WY
USA
613 Posts |
Posted - Mar 22 2010 : 7:51:48 PM
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I heard that freeze was going to skyrocket the price... After growing my own, I just can't bring myself to buy them in the store. They have NO flavor! Even when DH and I are at a restaraunt and have a tomato on our hamburger we just taste it and can't TASTE it, if you know what I mean. I'll wait until mine ripen. Until then, I'll use my homegrown canned tomatoes... it's well worth the wait for me! Not to mention, well worth saving the money for a tomato that's worth it....
"Only two things that money can't buy, that's true love and homegrown tomatoes."
- Guy Clark
"The man who has planted a garden feels he has done something for the good of the world."
- Charles Dudley Warner |
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Rea231
True Blue Farmgirl
139 Posts
139 Posts |
Posted - Mar 23 2010 : 11:36:55 AM
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Michigan suffered blight through out most of the state so our whole crop was depleted.
The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. |
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Garden Gate: Ye Gads! The price of Tomatoes? |
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Ye Gads! The price of Tomatoes?
