Charting tomato trends in a pandemic year
What kind of year has it been for tomatoes? Up and down, even more than usual.
I have pulled together a few charts around tomatoes, looking at import and export trends, average f.o.b. and retail prices, and store promotions. Generally, imports are growing faster than exports, of course. This year, the tomato has seen reduced retail promotions, perhaps because of the pandemic. But the charts, all from USDA data, speak for themselves.
On the topic of tomatoes, some technology news:
Science Daily reports that scientists have produced a tomato enriched in the Parkinson’s disease drug L-DOPA in what could become a new, affordable source of one of the world’s essential medicines.
Nikkei Asia, in a story called "Japan approves gene-edited ‘super tomato.’ But will anyone eat it?"
From the story:
Food made with genome editing technology is set to head to Japan’s dinner tables for the first time with the government’s approval of a new heart-healthy tomato.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare on Friday approved the production and sale of a tomato developed by the University of Tsukuba and Sanatech Seed, a startup from the school. The fruit features five times the normal amount of GABA, an amino acid linked to lower blood pressure, thanks to tweaks to genes that normally limit GABA production.
