Why Are Grocery Store Tomatoes So Meh?

Many tomatoes found in large grocery stores are mealy and lack flavor. Learn why -- and what researchers are doing about it -- in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff Lauren bog Obam Here. Fresh tomatoes pile high
and grocery store produce sections twelve months out of the year,
but for tomato aficionados they're only good for a short season,
or maybe not ever. Grocery store tomatoes have long had
a reputation for being bland, meally, too firm, tasteless, and dry.

(00:27):
There are scientists working to save grocery store tomatoes, and
not just by encouraging people to garden or shop at
farmers markets. Through science and honestly good grocery store tomato
maybe on the market within five years. We spoke with
Harry Clee, professor of horticultural science at the University of Florida,
who's putting his passion for tomatoes into the long work
of developing a better tomato for the mass market. He said,

(00:50):
we're not going to consider our program of success until
all grocery store tomatoes taste good. According to Clee, the
number one complaint about produce in America is the favor
of grocery store tomatoes. It's a problem that's been around
for decades. Clever members in n seven essay in the
New Yorker about how hard it is to find truly ripe,
fresh tomatoes. So how did tomatoes end up tasting so blah?

(01:14):
The problem lies in the entire market chain. Clip points out.
Farmers aren't paid on flavor. They're paid on pounds of
tomatoes they put in a box. Growers will tell you
they can't control flavor. What the market values motivates growers
to prioritize fast growth, high yields, disease resistance, and a
long shelf life. Breeders have been developing tomatoes in response

(01:36):
to those qualities that growers are looking for. Tomatoes don't
have to taste good for any of that to happen.
Cli pointed out that the loss of flavor isn't intentional
on anyone's part. It's just a side effect of the
neglect of attention to flavor. He compares it to a symphony.
If one instrument is missing, you probably wouldn't notice. If
two or three instruments bow out, and experienced musician might notice.

(01:57):
But if one by one instruments leave the orchestra, eventually
you'll notice something's missing. And in the case of fruit
like tomatoes, well, in Klee's words, flavor over fifty years
has gone to hell. The growers who do get paid
on flavor focus on local sales to customers who live
nearby and provide repeat business both home cooks and restaurants.

(02:18):
Those are the growers who can pick tomatoes once they've
ripened on the vine, and they don't have to ship
them far and risk damage. We also spoke with Julie Dawson,
a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who
does tomato variety trials, including varieties from a number of
different public and private sector breeders. Some varieties of the
trials come from Seed Savers Exchange, an organization that's devoted

(02:39):
to preserving America's diversity and food and garden plants by collecting, sharing,
and saving seeds and by encouraging people to grow them.
She said, we hope our trials help breeders develop varieties
that have the flavor that make people want to buy
and eat more. She explained that flavor can get bread
out in any number of unexpected ways. For example, there's

(02:59):
a gene that producers want because it makes tomatoes ripen
uniformly across the whole fruit all at once, but it
also changes the way sugars accumulate in the fruit, but
she also said the bigger part of why they don't
taste good is due to how people manage them, such
as picking them green. A lot of the ripening on
the plant creates sugars and volatile compounds that make the
tomatoes taste good. They're easier to ship when they're under ripe,

(03:22):
but they will never develop all of those flavors, and
ripening tomatoes commercially with ethylene gas is no substitute for
the work nature does on the vine. Dawson said, it
just turns them red. You don't get all the volatiles
and secondary compounds that make it smell like a tomato
and taste good. So now clear and numerous horticultural scientists
are working to bring flavor back, but growers and supermarkets

(03:46):
still need the qualities of a modern tomato. Klie said
breeding is now a balancing act because growers still want
a good yield and disease resistance. We have to keep
key pieces in. At the University of Florida, the Horticultural
Science Department is growing over a hundred varieties of tomatoes
and uses a tasting panel of over a hundred people
to help identify what makes it tomato taste good. They've

(04:06):
come up with a list of compounds that impact flavor.
The tasting panel helps them identify what people like, and
then they determine how much of each compound is in
the tomatoes that get approval from the panel. The process
produces a scientific recipe for a great tomato. Klie said,
DNA sequencing has become cheap, so if sequenced the genomes
of five hundred different varieties of tomatoes, they can identify

(04:27):
jeans that make good tasting modern tomatoes, trace where those
genes came from, and bring them back. It creates a
breeding roadmap. Right now, Clean his team are working on
nine different genes to put into modern tomatoes, creating fruit
with the yield, disease resistance, and shelf life that growers
and markets want, but the flavor the tomato lovers crave.
But the challenge with creating better fruit and vegetables is

(04:49):
that it takes time. In Florida, Clean his team can
only grow two generations of tomatoes a year, but better
tomatoes are on the horizon. Kali says tasting panels in
summer of twenty nineteen will help them finalize a tomato
that's got it all. Once that's done, the challenge is
getting growers to take a chance on planting and selling them,
and growers tend to adopt new plants conservatively, but the

(05:10):
university is working with several commercial seed companies that want
to be the first in the market with good tomatoes.
Consumers have a role to play and getting better tomatoes
to market to buy them, Kali said. Some people are
willing to pay more for great flavor, but most people
are price sensitive. If you pay little, you get what
you pay for. People need to step up and pay
for better tomatoes. If you've got a garden plot and

(05:33):
you can't wait for some of the tomatoes developed at
the University of Florida, you can get seeds that aren't
on the market yet. You can donate ten dollars towards
cles Genetic Tomato Research to receive packets of three varieties.
Search online for the Clear Garden gem web page. That's
k l e E. If you grow them, they would
love to hear how they perform in your garden. Today's

(05:56):
episode was written by Sean Chavis and produced by Tyler Clay.
Brain Stuff is the production I Heart radio's How Stuff Works.
For more on this and lots of other tasty topics,
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