By Valerie Mendonca
The cost of fresh tomatoes has tripled in recent weeks, hurting the profits of local pizza businesses.
Tomato prices have been unusually high due to crop damage in both hurricane-stricken Florida and rain-drenched California.
This has added to the normal price, which is higher in the winter months.
Some people in the food service industry say they’ve never seen prices so high.
“This has been the worst year for produce ever,” says a spokesperson for Fresh Start Foods Inc., a local produce wholesaler.
They say last year in January, the price of romaine lettuce skyrocketed due to weather conditions in California.
But this year everything is being affected by the climate south of the border.
“Last year it was just lettuce, now everything is spiking. The hurricanes in Florida wiped out crops and the demand is too high. There’s not enough product to go around.”
Gino Dervish works at 1 for 1 Pizza. He says he’s definitely been feeling an impact from the rise of tomato prices.
“We’ve been affected a lot, because since the first week of October, dramatically the prices have been going up.”
Dervish says he used to pay anywhere between 18 and 20 dollars for an 18-kilogram case of tomatoes.
Now he says he’s paying almost three times what he paid several months ago.
“We pay $60 per box for 18 kilograms. Even for 10 kilograms we pay $49.”
Owners such as Elie Gharib of Gabriel Pizza on Bank Street say they don’t know what they’re going to do if the high prices continue.
“We’ll have to wait it out. We have no choice,” says Gharib. He adds fierce competition among pizza vendors in the city is a major deterrent to raisingprices unless it is absolutely necessary.
Some pizza makers may resort to rationing portions, but that doesn’t work for Gharib. He says Gabriel Pizza is a chain and has set dimensions for each pizza size.
Salah Rachidi, owner of independent Italian eatery Bruschetta, says he is not thinking of raising the prices on his menu. However, he has already been reducing food portions on some items.
He says it’s upsetting the prices have risen so dramatically yet the quality has significantly decreased.
“They’re soft tomatoes, they don’t last too long. They last two or three days and that’s it.” He says tomatoes should be able to last a week.
To offset lower profits, Dervish says he’s been working more.
“I know the food cost is going up, so I try to put more hours of work, and use less labourers than I would use before,” says Dervish.
No matter what though, Dervish says he just can’t alter the price of his pizzas.
“We can’t because there’s too much competition all around. And the customer is not going to be satisfied because of the effect of any floods or any nature,” he says.
Workers in the industry like Dervish are staying optimistic prices will soon go down. “It’s not going to take long,” says Dervish.
“I think it’s going to take another three months for the price to go back to normal. Because of the production, they’ll grow again.”