“Ugly and bad legs.” Usually, produce shippers steer clear of fruit like that, but not in the case of heirloom tomatoes. Despite their short shelf life and less-than-aesthetic appearance, the tomatoes fill a growing niche market among consumers, shippers say. Part of the appeal lies in the novelty. The popularity of heirlooms has grown “because they are a really interesting looking and very tasty tomato,” said Brian Bernauer, director of sales for Fresh Pac International, Oceanside, California.
Dick Keim, director of sales and marketing for Oceanside Produce Inc., Oceanside, sees them as a fad among other specialty tomatoes. “Because tomatoes are a very important category to retailers, they’re usually looking for ways to increase items in the tomato category,” he said. Consumers are willing to pay high prices for heirlooms; chefs use them to add color to their presentations, such as having green and yellow tomatoes on the same plate, he said. Some people have even marketed them as “ugly tomatoes,” with their stripes, speckles, and varying colors, Bernauer said.
Jesse Ledezma. warehouse manager for The Produce Exchange, National City, California, said the tomatoes sell well in specialty stores in more affluent areas. “We do very well with heirloom tomatoes up in the Northern California area,” he said.
That “ugly” appeal can puzzle some shippers used to a world in which consumers tend to buy with their eyes. “All the positive attributes of the heirlooms that everybody is talking about are what we cull out of our standard production tomatoes today,” said Ben Garrison, a broker for Carlsbad Produce Inc., Carlsbad, California. The flavor also sells well. John King, sales manager for Andrew & Williamson Sales Company, San Diego, said heirlooms show consumers’ renewed interest in better tasting product. Dick Keim credits that flavor partly to varieties, partly to the heirlooms always being harvested at a ripe state. The tomatoes have to be picked and packed with extreme caution, and they’re difficult to ship long distances, he said.
Last season, demand for heirlooms exceeded The Produce Exchange’s supplies, “which is good because the shelf life is not there,” Ledezma said. At times, the company shipped customers fewer tomatoes than they originally requested, to make sure stores were moving them, he said. Tony Medeiros, general manager of DiMare/Newman, Newman, California, said the short shelf life led the company to offer smaller consumer packs of heirlooms this season.
Perishability alone doesn’t deter shippers from heirlooms. “There’s nothing much more delicate than strawberries, and we do a good job with those,” said Bob Schachtel, sales manager for Expo Fresh LLC, San Diego. “Tomatoes are almost like hardware compared to strawberries.” It’s more a matter of volume, he said. “We’ve been asked to get involved in it, but it’s really not big enough acreage, big enough tonnage for us to really do anything with,” Schachtel said. “If we can’t grow it and have 5 or 6 loads a day, we don’t want to mess with it because the feasibility is not there. You have to get tonnage off whatever you’re doing.”
The Produce Exchange gets its heirlooms from a grower in the San Diego County area.