Tasteless supermarket tomatoes - Let's campaign!

Primrose

I know those of us who grow our own tomatoes like to pick varieties like Gardeners Delight and others which really have a decent flavour. I don't know about the rest of you, but for the rest of the year when I can't grow my own, I want to buy tomatoes from supermarkets which have some flavour rather than the tasteless ones normally available. I'm therefore e-mailing the major supermarkets via the "Contact Us" section of their websites to ask if they will start labelling and selling tomatoes with the name of the variety, in the same way that they label apples for sale i.e. Cox, Pink Lady, Braeburn, etc.
Anybody else feel the same way and want to join in? We had some vine tomatoes from Sainsburys the other day which tasted like liquid water.

foreign_correspondent

Often the flavour is not down to the variety so much as the fact that many supermarkets refridgerate them (fresh produce is transported in refridgerated trucks) which kills the flavour.

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there

I may be wrong (nothing new) ..but I believe Morrisons always used to label -I only remember this because I had some gorgeous ones called "conchita" that I saved seeds from and grew my own ...
One thing that does amaze me is how well home grown tomatoes will last just sat in a bowl on the worktop -I do this with supermarket ones and they don't last very well at all -I assumed it would be the other way round as home grown aren't sprayed with anything to help them keep

Im with you though that unless you buy the really expensive ones the supermarket tomatoes have very little taste... i have to say that out here they are much better (not as nice as HG ones though)..but I out here everything is random shapes n sizes -non of this faff with nice even shapes n sizes :rolleyes: ...when I get apples they can vary from about 4oz - 1lb each :Tand full of flavour they are too..ok Im going off on a tangent

Farway

I watched a TV programme a while back where they visited a supermarket tom grower and mentioned flavour

His reply was the toms the supermarkets wanted were "Red, round & 8 to the pound" no mention or requirement about flavour or taste

So my guess is we are getting what we are willing to pay for, pay more, maybe shop at Waitrose, and get tasty toms?

That said I get my vine toms in Lidl lately, £1.78 kg, and very tasty, but I expect having said that the next lot will be rubbish

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Can I add in a (slightly) related plea? Please, please, please, Mr Supermarket Managers, please give us flowers that have a scent - it is heartbreaking when you don't have a garden or access to any 'real' ones, to have a beautiful bunch of roses given to you, only to find that the plastic they are wrapped in has a stronger scent than the flowers themselves! Many older people may have problems with sight, hearing, mobility, even with their faculties, but the olfactory system remains. After all, you are quite happy to let us all smell the bakery to get us buying bread and cakes, why not flowers?

olly300

If you want tomatoes or any fruit and veg to taste of something and flowers that smell then don't buy them from a supermarket.

Supermarkets stuff has to keep so they shove everything in the fridge so it lasts longer. Small retailers (unless they are convenience stores) don't charge more than supermarkets for fruit, veg and flowers. For example my greengrocer down the road sells all this stuff cheaper than supermarkets and it all has taste/smell.

Lotus-eater

Supermarkets want perfect fruit for us the consumer and farms have been pressurised into growing them.
They have also ground down the price, so farms have gone for the best yielding strains and the best shape. This has meant that the taste has gone out of the window.
The better tasting ones are grown, but they are more expensive.

You want tomatoes/apples all year round, you want them brought in from Spain/Italy/China and you want to pay a quid for 8. This just isn't possible and get good tasting ones as well. If the housewife stopped buying them, they would disappear overnight. They don't, because they don't.
Eat seasonally people.

Zazen999

They taste like water and they are welcome to them.

If they started selling things with taste, it would put the prices up even more and would also put people who do sell tasty tomatoes out of business. Then once the prices have doubled. they will reduce the taste again and ad infinitum.

The only way that the supermarkets will start selling stuff that has taste is if people stop buying tasteless mush. Shop somewhere else. And eat things when they are in season, bought locally.

Teahfc

The supermarkets use long life varieties fo tomatoes,the best non Spanish long life are from Italy or France. As a supplier to the trade we have to split grade tomatoes so they fit 4 slices on a standard piece of bread ..just how the stores want them predictable and boring.
Vine tomatoes are only nice because we think they are all to do with marketing, dress something up eye catching and it will sel to the mug shopper !

Primrose

Teahfc - interesting what you say about vine tomatoes. My OH always buys vine tomatoes and I complain because they're more expensive and seem just a poncy marketing guise for charging a higher price. They seem to be just as tasteless as the loose ones. I still think the only ones really worth eating are your favourite home-grown varieties picked and eaten with the skins still warm from the sunshine.

Zazen999

Primrose wrote: »

Teahfc - interesting what you say about vine tomatoes. My OH always buys vine tomatoes and I complain because they're more expensive and seem just a poncy marketing guise for charging a higher price. They seem to be just as tasteless as the loose ones. I still think the only ones really worth eating are your favourite home-grown varieties picked and eaten with the skins still warm from the sunshine.

Agreed - my favourites are purple ones straight off the Vine from the garden or greenhouse. Grushovka is the type. Lovely.