Tasteless supermarket tomatoes - Let's campaign!

Eeyore2009

Have you tried a local market?
My local one (wimbledon) sells lovely tomatoes off the fruit and veg stall.
very powerful in taste

paulwf

I work at M&S and spend a lot of time on the produce department, and as I'm also veggie I guess I get a bit nerdy about produce

I've noticed a very simple correlation; when the strawberries and tomatoes swapped in mid-May from being overseas produced to being British the flavour instantly became more intense and sweeter.

Despite advances in farming produce is still seasonal and we need to eat with the seasons. I had a customer complaining about the flavour of the strawberries in February, what do you expect a strawberry to taste like when it is snowing outside? It's a tricky one, perhaps supermarkets should only stock seasonal produce but imagine how many complaints there would be if tomatoes were only available on the shelves May to September.

Primrose

When I was a small child (a long time ago now!), the food industry hadn't developed the vastly global distribution network it now has, so virtually all our fresh foods were seasonal, and disappeared for many months at a time. But it certainly helps to explain why people in my age group complain about tasteless food. It certainly isn't about nostalgia. It's largely that we no longer eat seasonally, and products that have been grown thousands of miles away and refrigerated to death to keep them in condition for customers elsewhere in the world. Few fresh foods improve for that kind of treatment. And many of the fruits & vegetable varieties grown then have disappeared, probably because they weren't commercially viable on the scale which growing supermarkets required. You have only to wait until autumn when English apples are available to enjoy some of the best of seasonal eating, yet few supermarkets stock them. You have to be lucky to find them specialist farm shops and local markets.

foreign_correspondent

KimYeovil wrote: »

I got banned from a Tesco for sequentially taking back tomatoes. The British consumers don't care. They buy tasteless trash. Most of the scum probably don't know what food tastes like anyway. Too much money being doled out to the underclasses - their buying power is too high.

If everyone returned unripe, flavourless rubbish to the shop then there might be a change. But most people who do care abandon supermarkets which just leaves behind a greater percentage of passionless idiots who make things even worse.

jeez, who woud have thought that a discussion about flavourless tomatoes could be turned into an offensive rant blaming this on people this poster considers to be "scum"! :rolleyes:

I wouldnt consider most criminals scum (I dont think it is a particularly useful or fair way to label other humans), nevermind people who just arent overly fussy about tomatoes. However, it does seem to be a descriptor this poster is fond of using.

I suspect it may actually have been your turn of phrase that got you banned from Tesco's rather than returning the tomatoes, but if you want good tomatoes buy local british tomatoes in season, and don't buy from supermarkets.

It is supermarket policy on ripening and refridgeration which destroys the flavour, alingside hydroponic growing and the quest for uniformity to please supermarket buyers, not the "underclass" - sorry to burst your bubble!

MRSMCAWBER

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

jeez, who woud have thought that a discussion about flavourless tomatoes could be turned into an offensive rant blaming this on people this poster considers to be "scum"! :rolleyes:

I wouldnt consider most criminals scum (I dont think it is a particularly useful or fair way to label other humans), nevermind people who just arent overly fussy about tomatoes. However, it does seem to be a descriptor this poster is fond of using.

I suspect it may actually have been your turn of phrase that got you banned from Tesco's rather than returning the tomatoes, but if you want good tomatoes buy local british tomatoes in season, and don't buy from supermarkets.

It is supermarket policy on ripening and refridgeration which destroys the flavour, alingside hydroponic growing and the quest for uniformity to please supermarket buyers, not the "underclass" - sorry to burst your bubble!

:T:T:T .... I have to agree..how a discussion on tomatoes can evoke such a reaction is quite amazing :eek:
I think that once you have grown your own you have something to compare against. Many on lower incomes who have to buy "basic/value" tomatoes and who don't have the space to try growing their own -don't have anything to judge them by. As far as my friend was concerned "a tomato was a tomato" until she tried home grown

foreign_correspondent

MRSMCAWBER wrote: »

Many on lower incomes who have to buy "basic/value" tomatoes and who don't have the space to try growing their own -don't have anything to judge them by. As far as my friend was concerned "a tomato was a tomato" until she tried home grown

Absolutely, most people have only had the opportunity to buy bland supermarket tomatoes, as that is all that is on offer...

When kids say they dont like tomatoes, I can totally understand why, when the only fresh tomatoes they have ever had are so boring.

Most kids love the actual flavour of tomatoes, hence their love of tomato ketchup and pizzas etc.. however, when you eat raw tomatoes that have none of that zing, and are orange, watery, cold slabs of vegetations in your sarnies they do not seem to be the same thing at all. (I love tomatoes, and I have to pick out the orance slices of tomato whenever I buy a pre-packed sarnie, as I find it inedible!)

However, if you give a kid some lovely, really red, gardeners delight to nibble on most will love them!

At the moment, I have a boot full of tomato plants which I am about to drop off at a school I visit through work, who are setting up a garden and allotment for their kids - I think this is a brill idea, and will engage so many kids who are practically minded, and will enable them to experience the delight of some real, fresh produce. :T

KimYeovil

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

if you want good tomatoes buy local british tomatoes in season, and don't buy from supermarkets.

It is supermarket policy on ripening and refridgeration which destroys the flavour, alingside hydroponic growing and the quest for uniformity to please supermarket buyers, not the "underclass" - sorry to burst your bubble!

Well, duh! Which is what I said in my second paragraph. Of course decent people can still hunt out decent produce. But all that does is accelerate the deterioration of what is supplied by supermarkets. The issue being discussed is how to improve supermarket stock, not how to make things worse.

Contradictory nonsense. Try thinking before you write.

foreign_correspondent

KimYeovil wrote: »

Well, duh! Which is what I said in my second paragraph. Of course decent people can still hunt out decent produce. But all that does is accelerate the deterioration of what is supplied by supermarkets. The issue being discussed is how to improve supermarket stock, not how to make things worse.

Contradictory nonsense. Try thinking before you write.

when I said 'supermarket buyers', of course I meant the people who are emplyed as buyers for the supermarket, not supermarket customers. Supermarket buyers generally want produce which is uniform, looks good, and stores well to reduce left over stock. This generally does not lead to well flavoured tomatoes.

If you google the term 'supermarket buyers' you will perhaps realise that it is you who should think before writing.

KimYeovil

Touche, but the primary problematical point remains that it is the customers who determine what the buyers select. If customers rejected flavourless produce the buyers would have to change. Your policy advocates filtering out those customers who care and leave even less demand for supermarkets to improve their range and quality.

master_of_puppets

don't waste your breath complaining,your small fry and supermarkets don't care. instead get your self down to a garden centre , wilkos ect and buy a grow bag and 3 tomato plants. and you'll have the best tasting toms all summer.