UglyRipe Redux

More on the UglyRipe stupidity. Viva Free Trade! I must say that instead of buying tasteless, pale winter tomatoes, I just do without. If I could buy a tomato that was consistently as delicious as the UglyRipe sounds, I would eat many many more tomatoes....

If a shortsighted board of Florida tomato growers has its way, Americans outside of that state will be denied the best-tasting tomato on the market--an heirloom, beefsteak-style tomato similar to the old-fashioned back-yard variety grown nationwide on local farms during the summer.

Because of a 1937 U.S. Department of Agriculture federal marketing order, this group of growers, known as the Florida Tomato Committee, has wide-reaching control over decisions about what produce can be shipped outside of the state. From October to June, most Americans get tomatoes from Florida--so the actions of this committee have a significant impact on the variety and availability of tomatoes in most supermarkets in the U.S.

For three years beginning in 1999, the committee allowed the heirloom variety, known as the UglyRipe because of its concave stem and rigid shoulders, to be shipped outside Florida. When the UglyRipe was available to winter consumers in northern states, Americans voted favorably with their pocketbooks. Despite a higher price (due in large part to special handling considerations because of their tender texture), the tomato became wildly popular and acreage dedicated to the tomato grew from 10 to about 300.

Buoyed by the UglyRipe's success, the growers of this tomato planted nearly 700 acres in 2003. But after last year's crops were in the ground, the Florida Tomato Committee refused to allow the product to be sold outside of the state, resulting in millions of pounds of lost produce. Its excuse? The UglyRipe didn't meet the cosmetic standards of the round, pink, tasteless tomatoes most of us routinely see on store shelves in the winter. Apparently, according to the committee the standards of what a good tomato should be don't include flavor.

So why has the committee pursued a protectionist policy that amounts to restraint of trade through the refusal to grant permission for the growers of the UglyRipe to sell the tomato outside Florida? Perhaps it's because of tradition--that tomatoes from Florida must look perfect irrespective of taste. Perhaps it's because many of the growers on the board don't want to admit that a better seed has been developed. But my money is that the new seed has many growers of the traditional Florida winter variety seeing tomato-red in their cash registers. Growers have “bet the farm” on their picture-perfect round tomatoes by investing in equipment that can easily process the job--picking the fruit just once a week through a mechanical process, and using more machinery to package the goods. The UglyRipe, however, is a much more labor-intensive fruit to produce and package--and that threatens the investment made by the other growers on the committee.

By holding the UglyRipe to a cosmetic standard of a completely different breed of tomato, the committee has found a loophole to protect its members' winter tomato market.

The committee's compliance officer has said of the Florida round tomatoes that the major growers decided this is the kind of tomato they want on the market. Why is a committee in Florida deciding what kind of tomato the rest of America wants? Doesn't it trust people to decide for themselves what they want? Perhaps the committee has the same suspicion I do--if UglyRipes are put on the free market, people will choose the taste of this more difficult-to-produce variety over looks of an easier-to-produce variety.

In fact, Florida is the only state to restrict the free trade of a particular variety of tomato to Americans in other states. Ironically, Floridians enjoy the UglyRipe year-round--because the tomato can be sold within the state during Florida's growing season--and it is carried by grocery stores that get the UglyRipe grown in other states when the weather's too hot to grow it in the Sunshine State.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture should step in and play its trump card over the Florida Tomato Committee. Americans demand tomatoes that are better tasting--not better looking. The UglyRipe is too tasty to become America's forbidden fruit.

-by John R. Block. John R. Block served as U.S. secretary of agriculture under President Ronald Reagan