Juicy tomatoes are a summer staple often slipped into burgers or sliced atop a salad. But weather disruptions in two major growing regions have driven up prices for the vegetable, and consumers shouldn’t expect much relief for their wallets in the months ahead.
“This one was driven by the double whammy: the freeze in Florida and weather issues in Mexico, primarily drought,” says David Branch, executive director of the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, which provides research and analysis on the food, beverage and agribusiness sectors. “Supply is going to level out, prices are going to tweak down. But we’re not going to have a huge supply increase” big enough to push prices down substantially.
