Market Minute: Snacking tomatoes ideal for great promotions

Many years ago the tomato category had round, hothouse, Roma and cherry tomatoes along with some packaged tube tomatoes. There weren’t many tomato choices available for customers in the produce department like there are today.

At the present time, we can find a multitude of tomato varieties in loose and designer packages. Among those are an assortment of popular snacking type tomatoes of varied colors. This is a new trend in healthy eating. Rather than grabbing at those sweets, people are taking a handful of snacking tomatoes, which are more nutritious.

Although tomatoes have been one of the crops affected by inclement winter weather, a shortage of tomatoes high-ended the markets. But the positive information from the growing areas is that there should be plenty of snacking tomatoes for some great ad promotions. There will be a good supply of various mixed colored cherry and grape tomatoes, which are perfect for some outstanding displays.

We are seeing some very nice displays of all types of tomatoes and especially snacking tomatoes in produce departments across the country on our recent coast-to-coast trip. Everyone is doing a super job supporting the tomato category, which in turn supports the many growers who do an outstanding job producing them.  

There should be some good promotional deals available for ads. Check with your suppliers and put together some nice programs to boost your snacking tomato sales.

Ron Pelger is a produce industry adviser and industry writer. He can be contacted at 775/843-2394 or by e-mail at [email protected].