Feeling the sqeeze: Fresh tomatoes are in short supply - Chicago Sun Times

Feeling the sqeeze: Fresh tomatoes are in short supply - Chicago Sun Times
PRICES SOAR | Florida freeze wiped out winter crop



March 4, 2010
BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter/sesposito@suntimes.com

If you've been to a Wendy's restaurant lately, you may have wondered, "Where's the beefsteak?"

Big and juicy all-American tomatoes are in such short supply that customers have to make a special request to have one slapped on top of their hamburger.
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Magaly Patricia Guachichulca hands a customer a salad at Lloyd's Express, 1 S. Wacker Dr., where signs explain why roma tomatoes are substituting for the usual variety. At right is manager Juan Galvan.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)


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Workers carry buckets of tomatoes last month at a tomato farm in Homestead, Fla.
(Getty Images)



Bob-O-Rino's sub shop in Portage Park is taking drastic measures to combat soaring tomato prices.

"Instead of whole slices, we are giving half slices, so I don't have to raise prices," said the sub shop's owner, Bob Jacobson.

People in the tomato industry -- growers and wholesalers -- are calling the tomato shortage a "crisis."

Blame freezing temperatures in mid-January that just about wiped out the tomato crop in Florida, by far the largest domestic grower of fresh tomatoes at this time of year.

The typical winter yield is about 25 million pounds of tomatoes per week, said Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, a trade group.

"We are harvesting probably 20 percent of that," Brown said, adding that Florida tomato growers, all told, are out "tens of millions of dollars."

Chicago wholesaler Wayne Passoff, who refers to himself as the "Tomato Man" and has a tattoo of the red fruit on each arm, said: "I haven't seen anything like this since 1989."

Wholesalers are importing tomatoes from Mexico, but demand is exceeding supply, said Gino Alimondi, vice president of Get Fresh Produce Inc., a wholesale vegetable, fruit and dairy distributor based in Bartlett.

That supply shortage is driving up prices -- about three times higher, both for wholesale and retail, than normal for this time of year.

Alimondi said he's suggesting clients supplement their "round" tomatoes with the cheaper and more plentiful Roma, grape and cherry varieties.

"Obviously, if you need a sliced tomato for a hamburger, you can't be using a cherry tomato," he said.

At Lloyd's Express, a busy lunch spot at 1 S. Wacker Dr., they've put up a sign telling customers the restaurant has substituted cheaper Roma tomatoes for the round ones.

In stores, tomatoes that typically average 79 to 99 cents a pound are selling for close to $3, although some big-store chains such as Jewel-Osco say they've imported enough from Mexico and Canada to keep prices low.

Subway says it isn't raising sandwich prices either -- it's expanding the tomato varieties stores use to meet demand.

At Wendy's, which has about 6,200 restaurants in the United States, "We are offering tomatoes to customers by request only," said Denny Lynch, a company spokesman. That's based on limited supply and the "inconsistent" quality.

But there is some good news in all of this -- the next Florida tomato crop isn't far off.

"By Easter, everything should be straightened out," Passoff