Holding back

Thomas Cignarella, president of Morris Okun Inc., New York, N.Y., said this morning that tomato buyers there were cautious. "Nobody is really doing anything; retailers and foodservice (buyers) are holding back," he said.

He noted the bulk of Mexican production is finished and Florida is winding down as well, but still has substantial volume.

Production from the Carolinas is just getting started, he noted.

Until now, he said the wholesale market has been "maintaining" but events over the weekend have put a "hold" on everything.

Obviously the FDA's nationwide alert is tough on tomato traders everywhere. Hog farmers aren't too happy either, as it turns out. This story from Reuters explains:

Pork belly prices are under pressure as interest in the BLT, the popular summer bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, could dip after an outbreak of salmonella poisoning in nine U.S. states, with illnesses in two of them blamed on eating raw tomatoes

Prices of pork bellies, from which bacon is sliced, fell $4 to $15 per hundredweight in the cash markets on Thursday, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"Realistically, ideas that people are going to be wary of buying tomatoes can't have been viewed as a favorable development by belly traders," said Dan Vaught, Wachovia securities livestock analyst.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday said the salmonella outbreak may be tied to the consumption of certain raw red tomatoes