As America experiences a shortage of tomatoes, the price of pasta sauce and tomato ketchup could rise.
After one of the hottest summers in decades, customers could pay more.
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According to the The, prices of pasta sauces and ketchup are rising faster than any other food product. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
California’s weather events are putting a strain on the production of raw materials. The consequences are reaching consumers.
“We desperately need rain,” head of California Tomato Growers Association Mike Montna told Bloomberg.
“We are getting to a point where we don’t have inventory left to keep fulfilling the market demand.”
Inflation has also reduced the amount of land that can be used for tomato production.
“You have the drought impacting costs because you don’t have enough water to grow all your acres, and then you have the farm inflation side of it with fuel and fertilizer costs shooting up,” Rick Blankenship, an executive with tomato producer Woolf Farming, explained to Bloomberg.
“We’ve had high temperatures and that in itself creates an issue where the tomatoes are so hot that they just don’t size properly — so you have a lot of tomatoes on a plant, but they are smaller.”
According to the nonprofit, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s most recent water policy did not include a conservation mandate. CalMatters.
“Drought is a permanent fixture here in the American West, and California will adapt to this new reality,”Newsom stated that in a Statement.
According to the study, tomato production in northern California and China will rise in cooler climates.
Tomatoes play a major role in many of the most delicious and cost-effective options available to consumers such as frozen pizza, pasta marinara and other dishes.