If you’ve been keeping track of the Salmonellosis tomato outbreak, you’ve probably heard rumors that some restaurants have started to carry “safe” tomatoes.
What you may not be aware of is that, while local restaurants have been able to secure enough tomatoes for their customers, the larger restaurant chains have a larger problem: getting enough tomatoes for all of their stores.
Since last week, Burger King [BKC] has resumed stocking tomatoes, although not necessarily in all markets.
This is in line with several other chains that have declared resuming their tomato supplies (but again, not necessarily in all markets):
- Wendy’s [WEN]
- Yum Brands [YUM]: A&W, KFC, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell
However, McDonald’s [MCD] has chosen to not supply their restaurants with tomatoes until they can guarantee nationwide coverage. How does this impact consumer dining choices? When evaluating the menus, what is quite interesting is that a larger number of products in the McDonald’s menu do not incorporate fresh, raw tomatoes, compared to Burger King’s.
Big Boost to Your Friendly Neighborhood Tomato Farmer
In a related story, MSNBC reports that local farmers are getting an unexpected boost from the Salmonellosis tragedy. The reasoning is that, “Hey, if these commercial farms have all these contaminated tomatoes, let me try some of this locally grown stuff and hope it’s not the same as the commercial stuff…”
But with dramatically increased demand, that these growers keep up?
Quite an interesting twist to redeveloping business relationships between food producers and service retailers and the (direct) consumers.
More Reading
These other Javamancy posts are listed in reverse chronological order:
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Update 4
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Update 3
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Update 2
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Redux
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
- AP story via FoxNews about restaurants and other chains pulling tomatoes (6/19/2008)
- Other chains mentioned having yanked tomatoes include:
- Chipotle Mexican Grill [CMG]
- Darden Restaurants [DRI]: Olive Garden, Red Lobster
- Garden Fresh Restaurant Corporation
- OSI Restaurant Partners: Blue Coral Seafood & Spirits, Bonefish Grill, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Cheeseburger In Paradise, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse, Lee Roy Selmon’s, Outback Steakhouse, Roy’s
- Other chains mentioned having yanked tomatoes include:
- MSNBC: “CDC: 383 tainted tomato cases confirmed“ (6/18/2008)
- AP story via SFGate about Wendy’s and Taco Bell resuming offering tomatoes (6/17/2008)
- AP story via MSNBC about Burger King resuming offering tomatoes (6/12/2008)
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