Organic Food Lover

Tim Worstall discusses some dodgy practices going on in farmers' markets in Britain:

Consider, for example, Isle of Wight Tomatoes, one of the most established stallholders at London’s numerous farmers’ markets. It looks like a small, traditional enterprise and claims to sell its own homegrown produce. Think again. Its tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers are bought from a separate company, Wight Salads, the bulk of whose £60m turnover comes from supplying supermarket chains.

Worse, as far as many green consumers may be concerned, many of the tomatoes are actually experimental genetic crossbreeds that Wight Salads is engineering to try to find the “next best thing” for the supermarkets. In short, these tomatoes are a far cry from traditional British produce homegrown in a smallholding.

It’s a very good business. Nonorganic cherry tomatoes bought from Isle of Wight Tomatoes and weighing 455g (16oz) fetch £3.50 at the Pimlico farmers’ market stall. At Tesco you can pick up the equivalent weight oforganiccherry tomatoes for £1.78. Ordinary tomatoes like the ones The Sunday Times bought from the market cost even less and the equivalent weight can be bought at Tesco for £1.26.

I hope this kind of thing isn't standard practice, although I'm not surprised that this goes on, but I am definitely disappointed to hear about it.

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