July 3, 2008


MANATEE --Business was slower than usual for local growers the day after Florida was given the go-ahead to sell and ship tomatoes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday determined that the salmonella outbreak was not associated with tomatoes grown in 19 Florida counties, according to the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.

But now that Florida tomatoes are on the "safe-to-eat" list, troubles aren't over for growers in the prime tomato-producing regions of Ruskin, Palmetto and Quincy. Customers are slow to pick up orders and inspections have put a lull in the entire process. Growers must provide a certificate issued by the state to verify that each shipment of tomatoes were harvested after May 1.

"It's what we anticipated, that it would start back slowly," said Bob Spencer of West Coast Tomato. "As you know, when you yell 'fire' everybody hears it, and when you yell 'the fire's out' not everybody hears. We've got to wait for word to filter back to the public."

Time, though, is running short for growers who have a few short weeks until the crop goes bad.

West Coast Tomato plans to continue harvesting its millions of pounds of tomatoes, trusting that customers who already have loads of returned tomatoes will be able to sell the fruit to restaurants or consumers.

"We've got to pick and we're just going to have to gamble that we can hold and outlast the slow down," Spencer said.

Normally about 20 percent of the crop would have to be tossed, but now he expects that to rise to 30-35 percent. Discounts will have to be applied to ripened tomatoes, affecting the prices received for tomatoes. There's no silver lining in store for Florida now that it has been placed on the "safe-to-eat" list because North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia are in line to begin supplying the market with their tomatoes.

"As perishable product as that is, they've got to move it quickly. That slowdown we had was incredibly bad for the industry," said Lisa F. Lochridge, director of public affairs for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

Florida growers sustained an estimated $500 million economic impact due to the salmonella advisory.

It will likely take weeks to gauge the full impact on the Florida industry because tomatoes stuck in the pipeline risk ruin, said Tony DiMare of DiMare Farms.

"Our customers and receivers that were holding the tomatoes, they've got a very short life left on the product," he said.

Workers at DiMare Farms, which stopped shipping on Sunday, have returned to fields in East Manatee to harvest about 1.2 million pounds of round and Roma tomatoes. The company expects to finish harvesting by the end of the week, which positions them to be able to sell the tomatoes if there are buyers.

"All this is fine if we get everything cleared, but nobody's going back to buying tomatoes at chain stores and nobody's ordering them on their sandwich," he said.

Business at Taylor & Fulton has been "close to horrible," according to partner Edward Angrisani. The company on Wednesday harvested 20 loads of tomatoes but had only sold three by the early afternoon.

"The problem is that the pipeline stopped. Now the question is, 'When will it get going again?' " Angrisani said.

If business lags again today, he doesn't plan to continue harvesting the tomatoes.

"We can't eat all these tomatoes," he said. "All we hope is that the public will go back to eating our product immediately and the confidence in our product will grow."