Tomato pulse: weak but getting stronger

One tomato market player offers some thoughts today.....

On the slow and cheap (but not stagnant) market:

"It's slowly but surely coming back a little."
"Spent all of yesterday receiving and sending out faxes from the Florida Dep't of Ag certifying that each one of my loads for the last 10 days is from a 'taint-free' county. I'm getting real good at that..."

On the media....

"And the tornado-like media has gone onto something else, as expected. No shouting from the mountaintop that Florida tomatoes are clear, unlike their inital scare-laden headlines. I don't necessarily blame them for the message, but I do think that they appered clueless during this crisis, and I've also decided that, for the most part, researching one's story has become a lost art Just disgusting."

On the aftermath......

"This shakeout is gonna be ugly as well. Whether all these loads in question can be settled without the help (!) of PACA or even civil lawsuits, will depend on the grower-->salesman-->broker-->wholesaler-->store owner process, the whole chain of event's ability to work together and not take advantage of the situation. That's where human nature comes into play, and I'm not optimistic."