Posted on June 25, 2008 by Gerald Pugliese
Tomatoes are returning to menus, but growers aren’t sure if people are going to eat them.
Mercury News is on it:
California was one of the first states the FDA ruled out as a source of the salmonella outbreak, but the Golden State's tomato industry was still stricken by the warning.
"There's still a lot of consumer confusion out there," said Ed Beckman, president of California Tomato Farmers, a grower-owned cooperative that produces about 80 percent of the state's billion-pound-a-year fresh tomato crop.
Beckman said Monday that consumer demand is only 35 to 40 percent of normal, just as the state's tomato harvest in the San Joaquin Valley kicks into high gear. Demand from restaurants and other food service operators is only 65 to 80 percent of normal.
At Nob Hill Foods in Los Gatos, produce manager Eddie Ponce said tomato sales dropped considerably during the past couple of weeks. "People were scared and didn't want to buy any tomatoes, even the good ones," Ponce said.
Before the outbreak, he said, the store sold eight to 10 boxes of vine-ripened tomatoes a week. After the outbreak, sales plummeted to two to three boxes a week.
Low demand has driven down prices. Right now, Beckman said, tomatoes are between $8 and $10 for a 25-pound box. Before the scare, they were running about $15 a box.
Now, here’s a great reason why I’ve kept eating tomatoes. From Dr. Fuhrman:
Tomatoes have been a hot topic in recent years because their consumption has been linked to dramatic reduction in the incidence of common cancers. One of the tomatoes' heavily investigated anti-cancer phytochemicals is lycopene, which has been shown to be protective against cancer, including prostate cancer, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, lung cancer, and colorectal cancers.
Let’s not forget about
my kick-ass tomatoes!
