For those who sell their tomatoes, I wanted to speak about a trend here in Wyoming. I only grow only paste varieties for my sun-dried tomato business. Until a couple of years ago, Chef's bought whatever I had and had "No Opinion". That changed when they read what I consider to be the hype, about the available "black" varieties and the descriptions that ranged from exotic to smokey-flavored to "they will make you live longer" (not really but very nearly...)
My husband grows tomatoes for the Farmer's Market. Last year, he grew about 15 varieties of Blacks (those who saw the list of seeds I was giving away can see that he took the requests of his customers to heart.) He reports that he sold every black variety he took to market ahead of any other red, pink, orange, green or yellow variety he took to sell. Customers asked him continually where he got the seed and wanted to know if he sold plants in the spring.
Tomato popularity runs in cycles as we all know. Heirlooms in general are attracting quite a lot of attention but the Black varieties are causing what I consider to be, quite a stir. Whether I personally believe all the hype does not matter. I think everyone who sells to market should cash in on the current rage for Blacks while the feeding frenzy (
) is at it's peak.
And use that "hype" to your advantage...My husband had a arge poster with all of the descriptions about taste, etc and I think that also attracted a lot of buyers. Just sayin'...