Tomato Update

Note: Early this week came the newspaper article about the price gouging going on with tomatoes; and today...my local Publix in Georgia is selling three kinds of tomatoes at 99 cents a pound, or a quarter of what they were selling for the past several weeks. Yet there is essentially no official government news or comment by anyone other than the growers themselves in response. Suppose a gallon of milk were to drop in price to 65 cents a quart, or filet mignon drop to less than $4 pound. That would be news wouldn't it?

According to the American Restaurant Association's Market Report, a case of tomatoes that sold on November 25th, 2004 for $62.00 fell to $8.13 per case on Jan. 6th, 2005. If anyone believes there is nothing to this other than the markets "supply and demand", I have a really nice bridge for sale in Brooklyn.