Dave's Market Picks Fruit and Veg Box

“My pick for this week is field-grown tomatoes from north Queensland. These tomatoes have far been far less popular in the last few years compared to a decade or so ago when they dominated our winter tomato market. With the introduction of large quantities of glasshouse tomatoes from the southern states, the Qld fruit was often ignored. Initially, because the truss was a better-eating tomato.

I and many others in the industry believe this is no longer the case, continual price pressure from the major supermarkets for the growers to produce a cheap fixed-price tomato has been a classic case of being careful what you wish for. Unless one of the majors changes their desire for price, not flavour to be what determines how their purchasing decisions are made then, the flavour is unlikely to change.

The other major reason has been that the weather can and has damaged the field crops in the last few years. Glasshouse (Truss) tomatoes don't have this issue. This year, the weather in north Qld is perfect and we have huge volumes of very cheap tomatoes (pretty much at the prices of a decade ago).  Tomatoes are now oversupplied, and prices will fall everywhere. This, in turn will soon affect Truss, Romas, and all other tomatoes.”