Here's something from today's Post you might find interesting.
Ripe Dreams
How Produce-Aisle Exotica Becomes Everyday Fare
By Martha McNeil Hamilton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 12, 2003; Page E01
Haven't heard of the toma bella yet?
If Frieda Caplan is right, the hybrid with the texture of a bell pepper and the taste of a tomato should be coming soon to hot restaurants, organic food stands, fancy grocers and farmers markets near you.
Caplan, founder of the Los Alamitos, Calif., specialty produce distributor Frieda's Inc., began promoting the toma bella last month, sending out samples for buyers to taste, e-mailing chefs and contacting food writers describing its "intense red color" and surprising flavor. If the effort succeeds, it will create the kind of buzz that catches the attention of people like Chris Fullerton, manager of the Tuscarora Organic Growers Cooperative, which supplies restaurants, stores and farmers markets in the Washington area and in Pennsylvania.
Both are links in the chain that brings must-have new food items from the farm to the foodie's dining-room table. Frieda's does it nationally, supplying chains "that like to be first to market" such as Central Markets and Whole Foods, according to Tristan Millar, director of marketing and business development.
The Tuscarora co-op does it locally. Owned and directed by growers, the distribution co-op was founded in 1988 and has 19 members who work with a handful of other growers to supply stores, restaurants and farmers markets -- trying to keep up with the demands of professional and home chefs for items such as fava beans, squash blossoms and microgreens.
Distributors of specialty produce are a small part of the $84 billion produce industry, although there are probably several hundred such companies, according to Lance Jungmeyer, managing editor of the Packer, a produce-industry newspaper. Although the demand for more exotic fruits and vegetables is relatively small, the profit margins on fancy produce tend to be higher, and more and more players are vying for the market.
The toma bella, a trademark registered by Frieda's, is one of the latest in a line of exotic fruits and vegetables designed to appeal to the adventurous palate and win a permanent spot in the American produce pantheon. According to Caplan, it combines a "sweet, tomato flavor with the crispy, crunchiness of bell pepper . . . even after it's cooked."
Before you raise your eyebrows in skepticism, you should know that Caplan introduced a once little-known fruit called the Chinese gooseberry to U.S. markets, changed its name to kiwi fruit and is widely credited with helping to create its huge success.
Back then, celebrity chefs and adventurous home cooks embraced it. Eventually, though the kiwi never became a huge seller, it settled in, becoming commonplace in the nation's grocery stores. "It was chic. The White House or people like that would use the kiwi," during the 1980s, said Stan Steppa, president of Magruder's Inc. "It's an ordinary piece of fruit now."
The acreage devoted to growing the kiwi more than doubled in the 1980s and '90s and then began dropping again. The price of kiwis dropped, too, as a result of competition from imports from Chile and New Zealand and a shift in status from hot to ho-hum. Americans now consume about half a pound of kiwi fruit per capita per year, a number that has stayed relatively steady for the last six years.
Many trends have come and gone since the kiwi, Millar said. Some, like the jicama, also have become mainstream. Others, such as the star fruit, haven't quite found a broader market. Often what seems like an overnight trend can be a long time in the making, Millar said. For instance, Frieda brought the first kiwi fruit into the United States in the 1960s (when she met a customs official who said she would never be able to sell it unless she changed the product's name from Chinese gooseberry), but it didn't take off until many years later. In 1986, the company trademarked the name Donut Peach for a sweet, small peach that has only become really popular in the past three years, Millar said. Donut Peaches were selling last week for $5.75 a quart box at a Northwest Washington farmers market operated by New Morning Farms, a member of the Tuscarora co-op.
Frieda's first heard of the toma bella a few years ago when a Japanese investor tried to interest the company in it. Although Frieda's declined, a grower in Baja California, Mexico produced a crop that Frieda's ended up selling to one of its grocer customers. It was tasty, but at the time Frieda's wasn't in the market for a new item to introduce, Millar said. Earlier this year a seed source approached Frieda's with what appeared to be the same product. Growers and others often bring new products to the company since it is known for its interest in produce-aisle exotica, Millar said.
Frieda's found growers in California and Michigan, provided them with seeds, and began the launch.
Like the marketers at Frieda's, Chris Fullerton, the manager of the Tuscarora co-op, said he spends a lot of time listening to customers and scanning the food press to figure out in advance what is going to be in demand in a given season, but it's still a dicey business. "A lot of times the chef who was very enthusiastic about something might have moved on to another product," by the time the crop comes in, he said. The cooperative sells to 30 to 40 different restaurants, "so we never have all our eggs in one basket."
Even at the busy height of the season, growers are keeping an eye on what sells out and what just sits there, Fullerton said. "The main difficulty is making planting decisions so far in advance of when things are actually sold," he said. Planning through production can take two to three months for most crops. And before that, the growers have to order seed and decide on the mix of crops they will be planting. In a cooperative, there is also the need to balance production, Fullerton said. "You can't just go to a meeting and say, 'A couple of chefs have asked for microgreens -- why doesn't somebody try them?' and have everybody or nobody trying them."
"As soon as we are able to start to take a breather after Thanksgiving, we'll start thinking about the number of cases a week we want" of various items, he said. "We always have to be thinking ahead to next year."
Tuscarora growers started supplying squash blossoms in response to a request from Jose Andres, executive chef of Washington's Jaleo, Zaytinya and Cafe Atlantico restaurants, and discovered a wider and consistent demand for the product, Fullerton said. Other trends have come to stay as well. This year fava beans have been hot and so have microgreens, seedlings so tiny that they make mesclun look mammoth.
Although Fullerton keeps an eye on trends, he doesn't like to think of produce in those terms. "I just don't like that label. It's too ephemeral." Fullerton noted that in the past, people grew more varieties of vegetables than are typically available in supermarkets. "What I'm seeing is people rediscovering the variety that can exist in fruits and vegetables."
Customers can't get enough heirloom tomatoes -- older varieties that come in an array of shapes and colors, according to Fullerton and Magruder's Steppa.
But for other produce, variety alone may not be enough. Consumers didn't start buying more eggplants, even when Tuscarora's growers offered them in green, orange and white and in different shapes. "We thought that if we had a huge diversity of eggplants, people would get excited about that," Fullerton said, "but that never seemed to happen."
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