Foodservice, retail stores look for other sources of winter tomatoes after Florida freeze

Scott DiMare hasn’t seen so much devastation in decades. March is normally harvest for his tomato crops in Homestead, Fla., but freezing temperatures in January have ravaged fields across the state, leading to a dramatic reduction in the winter tomato market throughout the United States.

“This has been the coldest winter in 40 years, as far as I know. The last time we’ve had weather like this was in the 1970s,” said DiMare, a manager for Florida-based DiMare Fresh, one of the nation’s largest tomato growers.

“Production is off in Homestead, and we are just in the harvest.”

Cold temperatures are nothing new to Florida, where winter lows periodically dip below freezing in many parts of central and northern Florida. But 2010 was different. It was far colder than usual, and prolonged freezing temperatures left many cold-sensitive crops, like peppers and tomatoes, at serious risk of loss and setting records in parts of the state.

“We haven’t seen this duration in 60 years. Eight thousand acres have been lost in southwest Florida alone, about 70 percent of the winter crop,” said Gene McAvoy, University of Florida/IFAS Extension director, Hendry County.

The problem began in late December 2009, when an arctic cold front left much of North America under snow. Flurries were reported in the Florida Panhandle, but it was the temperatures that took the state by surprise, where nighttime temperatures reached as low as 16° F in Tallahassee, and subfreezing temperatures reached as far south as Miami.

It was also the longevity of the temperatures that have broken records. Low temperatures stayed in the teens for more than a week in central and northern Florida, and southern counties saw low temperatures in the 20s. And because most of the crop is planted in southern Florida, the plants weren’t ready to the freezing weather.

Florida typically harvests three tomato crops: A fall crop, harvested in November and December; a winter crop harvested in March and a spring crop harvested in May. Much of the winter crop was lost, and even the spring crop took a serious hit from the low temperatures.

“The window that we’re in right now comes out of the Homestead and Immokalee area, and there are probably 10,000 to 12,000 acres that have come out of that area that have disappeared because of that freeze. Even the plants that survived are dropping fruit and flowers, so they’re not growing well,” McAvoy said.

Florida winters are typically dry, which benefits the crops by lowering the risk of fungal diseases. But the 2010 winter has been wetter than usual across the southeast, increasing the risk of disease for plants that are already weakened by cold weather.

“It’s been tough trying to get anything out of these crops – the weather, they’re disease-prone, it’s a battle,” DiMare said.

“The plants only have so long of a life, so the crop hasn’t had much of a time to do anything. The big freeze in January is really what put the nail in the coffin.”

The drop in harvest and production in Florida has had dramatic impacts for foodservice and retail grocery store chains across the United States, as companies now have to worry about coping with lower supplies and reduced quality. In the face of falling inventories and availabilities, many retail outlets, like Publix Supermarkets, are turning to sources outside the United States to handle the loss, buying foreign tomatoes in place of Florida varieties.

“We are sourcing a majority of our tomatoes from Mexico, and we expect to see the same for the corn crop,” said Maria Brous, director of Media & Community Relations for Publix Supermarkets Inc.

Foodservice companies have had to address the loss, as well. Burger King has stopped providing tomatoes in some locations, placing signs in the dining rooms of affected restaurants to inform patrons that tomatoes are temporarily unavailable. But that hasn’t stopped customer demand for the crop, and customers are having to pay higher prices for a leaner supply.

“There is a high demand for tomatoes, low quantities available and high cost. Customers can expect to see a higher retail value, even though we as the retailer try to absorb some of that cost,” Brous said.

Many places refuse to cut tomatoes out of the menu or raise prices. Subway has winter tomato vendors in multiple locations, and has satisfied customer demand, even turning to unique varieties it doesn’t typically purchase or use in the restaurant chain.

“We aren’t taking tomatoes off the menu, and we are not raising any prices at the store level to offset any increases in tomato prices. We are doing everything we can to keep the effects of the tomato shortage as minimal as possible,” said Les Winograd, public relations specialist for Subway Restaurants.

“This happens to be the beginning of the time that we traditionally transition our tomato purchasing to other growing regions, we are also now supplementing our tomato purchases by buying additional varieties of tomatoes other than the variety that we usually buy that may be more readily-available.”

As temperatures warm up into spring and summer, there is some potential to get at least part of the harvest out of the spring crop. But with so many cold nights this winter, there may not be much of anything at the end of the season, and whatever gains growers can get in April and May be too little, too late to save the 2010 season.

“We’ll see a little comeback, but it’ll be early April before we see any of the spring crop planted after the freeze,” McAvoy said. “We might have a couple of weeks and move up the road, but it could be a short and ugly season.”

“Plants that were planted after the freeze are just sitting there,” McAvoy said.