Posted by Brad @ 9:25 pm on June 15th 2008

Languishing on the Vine

Following up James’ work, I’ve now taken an interest in the story. Here, Reuters does a good job of looking at the recent “Round Red Tomatoes” boondoggle from the perspective of the tomato industry.

Florida’s tomato industry is in “complete collapse” and growers in California and Mexico are having trouble selling their crops as U.S. regulators hunt the source of a salmonella outbreak linked to certain tomato varieties, growers said on Tuesday.

In Florida, the No. 1 U.S. tomato producer, $40 million worth of tomatoes will rot unless the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quickly traces the source of the outbreak and clears the state’s produce, an industry official said.

“We’ve had to stop packing, stop picking,” said Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.

“The stuff that should have been harvested over the weekend won’t survive more than another day or so. The stuff we have in storage is getting riper every minute and at some point it will have to be disposed of,” Brown said…[...]

“The reality is that the entire tomato industry is being impacted,” said Ed Beckman, president of the California Tomato Farmers. “It wasn’t really clear that round and Romas from California are safe to eat. That’s part of the problem.”

H/t: Kip.

posted in: Main

5 Comments »

  1. A further update courtesy of The Packer, the leading produce industry weekly:

    An E. coli outbreak linked to fresh spinach in 2006 had a devastating effect on that category and on bagged salad sales. It was unclear if the tomato category will take as long to recover.

    “I don’t see that,” said John King, vice president of sales for San Diego-based Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce, which imports tomatoes from Mexico. “I can just feel it. We have to get confidence back from consumers in the stores, but tomatoes are a real staple. All our customers have said they’ll be right back with us as soon as we get cleared.”

    Mexico is the last large growing area that has not been cleared by the FDA. King said Andrew & Williamson is working with Mexican government officials and the FDA to have Baja California cleared.

    That Mexican state was not shipping at the time of the outbreak, and that criteria has been used to clear other growing regions.

    Mexico, huh? Who’d have thunk it?

    Spinach, lettuce, and now tomatoes; who would have believed that the safest part of a BLT would be the bacon?

    Comment by James — 6/16/2008 @ 12:14 pm

  2. I messed up the tags. Those last two lines belong outside the quote box. Have I mentioned that we really need an “edit comment” and/or “preview comment” function here?

    Comment by James — 6/16/2008 @ 12:17 pm

  3. Fixed.

    Presumably the impetus to clear areas is loaded towards US producers, so Mexico is always going to be the last cleared.

    Comment by Adam — 6/16/2008 @ 1:18 pm

  4. That may very well be true, Adam, but one would think that the impetus would be to find the source.

    Comment by James — 6/16/2008 @ 2:01 pm

  5. Well, once the entire collection of tomato-growing regions had been hit with the FDA notice, I guess that ruling out the innocent is a big part of finding the guilty and the political heat would be directed at ruling out US suppliers first. As they haven’t announced that they’ve found the source, I suppose that it’s either Mexico or they’re not going to find the source, at least not quickly.

    Comment by Adam — 6/16/2008 @ 3:01 pm

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