Thread: 2016 Prices
View Single Post
Old February 23, 2016   #12
Cole_Robbie
Tomatovillian™
 
Cole_Robbie's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Illinois, zone 6
Posts: 8,407
Default

My prices are low, too, although not as bad as Joseph's.

I start my mixed color cherry pints at $3 or 2 for $5. I have dropped them to $2 in late summer when I have a large supply.

The first guy with tomatoes at market grows them hydroponically in a heated greenhouse, picks them green, and gasses them with ethylene to make them pink. They are like eating a mouthful of pink sand, but people buy them, because they are the first tomatoes. I don't even know what he charges; I don't consider his product to be tomatoes.

The organic heirloom vendor sets her prices at $4 a pound. I rarely see her sell anything. The rest of us keep to about the same prices. We start at $2.50/lb I think. Then over the course of the summer, it drops to $1.50, and bottoms out at 99 cents in late July, sometimes only for the last hour or so of market.

I haven't started selling to restaurants, yet. Market customers buy with their eyes. They hate imperfect fruit, bug bites, or anything that looks wrong. I would think that chefs would care a lot more about taste than looks, because the restaurant customer is never going to see what the whole tomato looked like.
Cole_Robbie is offline   Reply With Quote