Tomato costs recede as Fla. crops recover

BLUE HILL – Only two workers at Sisters Salsa – the owners – are chopping tomatoes, onions and jalapeno peppers this week, a job that used to be done by six.

Brothers Larry and James Buddington were forced to lay off their entire crew recently when the price of tomatoes rose from $15 a case to $65 a case, the result of massive agriculture losses in Florida because of the four major hurricanes this fall that literally blew the blooms off tomato vines.

Sisters Salsa, which distributes through Hannaford and Shaw’s supermarkets, was using 60 cases of tomatoes a day before the price shot up.

According to Fresh Facts supermarket scanner data from the Perishables Group, the national average retail price per pound for round field tomatoes is normally about $2 in the produce department. Over the past month, prices for those $2 tomatoes topped $5 in most Eastern states.

Larry Buddington said Tuesday that although the company was forced to close down for nearly a month, the price of tomatoes is dropping as the Florida plants begin to recover, allowing the two brothers to re-sume production.

“Today we are getting a load of 220 cases at $23 a case,” Buddington said, noting that each case is 25 pounds. “We are still struggling, but we are able to get back to work.”

Florida is the nation’s largest producer of fresh tomatoes, producing virtually all the fresh-market, field-grown tomatoes in the United States from October through June each year. Buddington said his company ordered tomatoes from California but found that the price was high to cover the cost of trucking and the taste was poor after such a long shipping route.

“We had to refuse the shipment when it arrived here,” he said.

Sisters Salsa is a dramatic example of how the loss of Florida’s tomato crop has affected local businesses, restaurants and salad bars. For some restaurants, the cost of a single tomato was greater than the plate it sat on.

At Wendy’s restaurant in Brewer, a new sign went up telling customers to ask for tomatoes on their sandwiches, an item that previously came automatically.

John Miller, owner of Miller’s restaurant in Bangor, said his restaurant made several adjustments to weather the price crunch.

“We took tomatoes off the buffet line as a stand-alone item,” Miller said Tuesday. “We used cherry tomatoes in our salads because they were a little cheaper. We also used seconds for dicing and cooking in our recipes.”

Miller said he was able to buy seconds for half the price of “perfect” tomatoes.

At Graves IGA in Hampden, manager Micheal Underwood said a lot of the tomatoes he sells are grown hydroponically in Canada, and therefore his customers had a choice to buy a fresh, less expensive tomato. “We didn’t really see customers curb their spending,” he said. “Tomato sales have been steady.”

Some restaurants have used the situation to their advantage.

“Luckily, we change our menu every month,” said Paul Noonan, manager of the New Moon Cafe in Bangor. “We do this based on seasonal ingredients and price. This is a perfect example – the tomato costs – that allowed us to try something different.”

Samantha Winters, spokeswoman for the Florida Tomato Committee, admitted Tuesday that “there seems to be a lot of tomato hysteria out there,” but added that the industry is rapidly recovering.

“Shipments are increasing steadily, and we are building up the volume,” Winter said. She said that because of the hurricanes, the tomato plants took a beating and were producing only half their normal yield. “But we’ve had some good weather and, barring any unexpected freeze, things will get back to normal soon.”

She said the crop was at 75 percent this week, where only two weeks ago Florida tomato growers were packing only 35 percent of what is typical for the season.

Winters said the tomato market should be back to normal by Christmas.

This is good news for supermarket shoppers, 80 percent of whom purchase tomatoes several times a month, with 42 percent of consumers purchasing tomatoes on a weekly basis – a strong category in most produce departments and one exceeded only by potatoes and lettuce.