Caprese salads could take on a new hue after genetically modified purple tomatoes cleared regulatory hurdles, raising expectations they would become the first GM fresh food available in Australian green grocers.
The genetically engineered Purple Bliss tomatoes developed by Norfolk Healthy Produce gain their vibrant violet from the genes of snapdragon flowers. The tomato has been modified to produce pigments called anthocyanins, which are found in blueberries and blackberries and thought to have antioxidant properties.
In January, Food Standards Australia New Zealand cleared the GM fruit to be sold fresh, as a whole tomato, or as an ingredient in processed food, such as sun-dried tomatoes or pastes. When sold, the tomatoes, and products containing them, must be labelled as genetically modified.
Separately, a licence issued by Australia’s Gene Technology Regulator enabled the tomato to be grown in Australia, similar to conventional varieties. No specific measures were imposed to manage risk, with the regulator determining the fruit’s release posed “negligible risk to the health and safety of people or the environment”.
The GM purple tomato is the second approval of a GM food that is likely to be grown and sold as a whole food in Australia. A GM banana was approved in 2024, but this is not yet available for sale.
Purple Bliss tomatoes are about the size of a cherry tomato, deep purple and taste a lot sweeter and juicier than normal tomatoes, according to Travis Murphy, the managing director of All Aussie Farmers, which holds the licence to grow and distribute the tomatoes in Australia.
“You can just eat them straight as they are, or use them as you would any normal cherry tomato in salads,” he said. “If you really wanted to use them in sauce, you could do that and turn your sauce purple.”
The tomatoes were bio-engineered for health and nutrition, he said. “You’re basically looking at a blueberry in tomato clothes.”
Murphy said they hoped to have the tomatoes available in local Victorian fruit shops by around spring, followed by New South Wales and Queensland.
Purple tomatoes are already available in the US.
Prof Natalina Zlatevska, a marketing expert at the University of Technology Sydney, said purple tomatoes would challenge expectations about what foods are normal to eat.
“Novel foods such as this can trigger curiosity as much as caution, particularly when they look different from what people grew up with,” she said.
FSANZ, which has approved more than 100 GM foods, received 32 submissions as part of the approval process for the purple tomato. Most – 25 submissions – opposed the approval.
Submitters included non-profit organisation GE Free NZ, which described the approval as a “Trojan horse” that could threaten biosecurity and consumer health, and criticised FSANZ’s reliance on industry provided data and the lack of longterm human health studies.
GE Free NZ said naturally purple and black heirloom tomatoes, like La Cadero and Indigo Rose, were already available.
