Farmers say salmonella scare has hurt tomato sales

With a salmonella scare causing many customers to shun what's normally a summertime favorite, tomato farmers nationwide have had to plow under their fields and leave their crop to rot in packinghouses.

As losses across the supply chain top $100 million, industry leaders are calling for a congressional investigation into the government's handling of the outbreak, the source of which hasn't been determined.

McDonald's Corp., Wendy's International Inc. and Yum Brands Inc. resumed offering some tomatoes on their menus in the last few weeks.

But now, during one of the biggest barbecue weekends of the year, tomato farmers say their summer season has already withered despite the government's recent announcement that some other type of fresh produce might have caused the salmonella outbreak, which has sickened 922 people.

"Now the government has a doubt as to whether it was tomatoes after they've already blackened our eye?" said Paul DiMare, president of The DiMare Companies in Johns Island, S.C. "June and July are the best time of the year for tomatoes, but our movement has completely stopped in the United States."

Farmers, packers and shippers fear it could take months to rebuild the $1.3 billion market for fresh tomatoes.

In Fresno County, one grower chose to lose $225,000 by letting his tomatoes rot in the fields this weekend because he would have taken a bigger hit hiring crews to harvest them, said Ed Beckman, president of the statewide cooperative California Tomato Farmers.

"This is normally a huge week for the industry because everyone barbecues, but we're just not seeing that demand materialize," Beckman said. "We are slowly starting to see consumers recognize that California tomatoes are, in fact, safe. But for a grower to walk away from a $225,000 investment, there's a lot of pain."

In Ruskin, Fla., where DiMare's son Tony oversees the family business' packing facilities, the price per 25-pound box of red round tomatoes dropped from $16 to just $10 after the outbreak began in early June. Tony DiMare said he had no choice but to let the fruit turn to mush, since his customers refused to pick up their orders.