Tomato Time : Consumers Can Expect a Break After Months of Sky-High Prices

On most Tuesdays, 75-year-old Phil Lombardo still rises early and heads for the produce market in downtown Los Angeles, where he likes to look over the goods coming in and going out.

Being in the midst of the pre-dawn hustle, talking prices and assessing quality is a habit Lombardo developed during the 15 years he was a produce buyer for a large grocery chain, and one that he has kept over the dozen years since he retired.

By today, or maybe next Tuesday, Lombardo expects to see something at the wholesale market that consumers haven’t seen at the grocery store in months: lower prices for tomatoes.

“They’re going to hit a good level, this week or next,” said Lombardo, a resident of Westminster in Orange County.

For most of the last four months, tomato prices have been sky high. Heavy winter rains during the December-January growing season in southern and central Mexico--which supplies many of the West’s tomatoes during late winter--destroyed as much as two-thirds of the crop there. Bell peppers and cucumbers also sustained heavy damage.

Produce wholesalers, handlers and shippers have been scrambling for produce to make up the difference, but the shortages have meant that shoppers have been seeing tomato prices near or above $2 a pound--at least double the normal rate.

In the last couple of weeks, however, wholesale prices for tomatoes have been dropping. Some smaller, independent grocers already have dropped the price of tomatoes to a more palatable 99 cents a pound, said Joseph Gonzales of Olympic Fruit & Vegetable.

At larger chain stores, prices remain in the $1.69 to $1.89 a pound range, and some produce managers have posted signs apologizing for the high cost. Gonzales said it may be a while before retail prices reflect the lower wholesale prices--as grocers attempt to make up for losses incurred when they were losing money on tomatoes despite the high prices.

The tomato harvest season in the rain-affected areas of Mexico ends this week. Already, tomatoes have begun arriving from Baja California, where the rains were not as heavy, and soon, say packers, the tomato harvest in the Imperial and Coachella valleys will begin. Plentiful produce from the California growing regions will drive down prices. In the meantime, tomatoes are being shipped in from Florida.

Tomatoes account for about 80% of business at Tam Produce, a Los Angeles packer, wholesaler and broker of tomatoes. In a normal season, Tam may handle 2 million to 3 million pounds of tomatoes a week, said company President Sam Licato. But this winter, volume has been down nearly 30% and prices have been five to six times higher than normal.

Even when the price goes back down, Licato knows that consumers will still be griping about the way tomatoes taste--or more specifically, don’t taste. His advice: never refrigerate tomatoes; keep them out of direct sunlight, and plan to eat them within three to five days of purchase.