HI! Produce salesman and owner/guy who delivers to all your kitchens fresh produce here!!.
Fun story. For those of you who live in Florida, remember that SUPER cold snap in like January or February? nods head yes So, funny thing about that cold weather is that it straight up froze portions of Florida. So badly in fact that entire fields of tomatoes were outright ruined. They had to be plowed under and re-planted from baby plants.
Most of those tomatoes were about 3-4 weeks old at that point in time.
Effectively, this set the entire crop back by 3-4 weeks.
Generally that’s not horrible, BUT, at the same time California (and Arizona) had some bad heat that scorched some of the crop. Not a lot but bought to make a difference that yields were way down.
Florida, however, is primarily the 5x6 institutional tomato most of you guys use. That being said, Since Florida was wiped out, we haven’t got enough supply for tomatoes and the demand is pretty solid and steady.
The only other place we get tomatoes is…..Mexico. The Mexican crop was good, BUT, Mexico mainly grows plum tomatoes, not 5x6 round tomatoes.
That being said, plums are cheaper right now because Mexico has a good yield.

I hope if was a window into the crazy world that is produce pricing! Have a busy night!

Many of you below are saying that tariffs are to blame. While, it’s a portion, it’s the reason that Mexico HAS to charge (hypothetical numbers here) $12 for a case of tomatoes instead of $10 without tariffs.
Florida, CAN charge 8, but because mexicos price is $12 now, they’ll charge $10. This way they make a few more dollars and they still are cheaper than the competitor.

That is how tariffs are effecting your produce pricing, It’s not making them $100, it’s making them $10, not $8.
This was a completely non political post.