Tomatoes Get Sliced From Menus

A shortage of tomatoes from weather-battered Florida is forcing restaurants and supermarkets to ration supplies amid soaring prices for America's most popular fresh vegetable.

Fast-food restaurant chains such as Wendy's have stopped automatically including tomatoes in sandwiches; now customers have to know to ask.

Even then, consumers might not get what they usually do. At Lloyd's, a white-tablecloth restaurant across the street from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, signs went up this week warning that only plum tomatoes are available.

"People love having tomatoes in their salad and in sandwiches but we want people to know ahead of time that the quality just isn't what they are used to," said Sam Berngard, president of Taste America Restaurant Group LLC, which operates Lloyd's and two Chicago seafood restaurants.

Subway is continuing to offer tomatoes on its sandwiches but the chain is using different varieties to ensure that it has enough on hand.

Fresh tomatoes are in short supply because of the unusual spell of freezing temperatures that hugged Florida in January. The cold temperatures that dented citrus production also destroyed roughly 70% of the tomato crop in Florida, which is the largest source of U.S.-grown fresh tomatoes this time of year.

Reggie Brown, executive vice president of Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, a Maitland, Fla., trade group, said Tuesday that a 25-pound box of tomatoes is trading for $30, compared with $6.45 a year ago.

Some restaurants have been told they would have to spend up to $45 for a box of tomatoes in recent days. "Doesn't matter though, because there isn't anything to sell," said Mr. Brown, who calculates the state's shipments are running at about 30% of normal.

Florida's weather woes aren't having much impact on prices of tomato-derived products, such as ketchup and sauce. Many of the country's processing tomatoes are grown in California but these tomatoes have different qualities than those typically eaten fresh.

Prices of fresh tomatoes are expected to fall sharply by April as farmers in southern Florida begin harvesting a new tomato crop, the condition of which so far appears to be normal. Still, Florida growers worry that they will have permanently lost even more market share to Mexican-grown tomatoes by then.

According to the U.S. Agriculture Department, about one-third of fresh vegetables such as tomatoes, bell peppers and sweet corn consumed in the U.S. this time of year come from Florida farms. About two-thirds of this type of produce is imported, and most of that is from Mexico. In recent weeks, weekly vegetable shipments from Mexico to the U.S. have soared by as much as 50% over year-ago levels, according to the USDA.

Publix Super Markets Inc., a Lakeland, Fla.-based chain with stores throughout the southern U.S., said Tuesday that it is paying more to import tomatoes from Mexico due to the Florida shortage.

"We expect we'll have a similar situation with corn," said Publix spokeswoman Maria Brous. "The severely cold weather from the South will continue to have an effect."

So far, many grocers are absorbing most of the tomato price increase rather than pass it along to their customers. Supervalu Inc., the supermarket giant headquartered in Minneapolis, said Tuesday that it is holding price increases on its fresh tomatoes to less than 5%. "At this point, we're anticipating that situation to stabilize in mid-April," a Supervalu spokeswoman said.

The Florida tomato industry has a big reach even though it is relatively tiny; most of the crop is produced by roughly 100 farming operations spread across 40,000 acres of land.

The USDA calculates that the January freeze cost Florida vegetable producers about $300 million, with tomatoes generating about half of that total loss.

According to the USDA, the value of U.S. fresh vegetable production was $10.4 billion in 2009, led by tomatoes, head lettuce and bulb onions. The USDA said Florida produced $1.4 billion worth of fresh vegetables last year.