Marketing Fresh Tomatoes: Systems and Costs

Excerpts from the report: The purpose of this report is to show the marketing system for mature green fresh tomatoes from grower to retail store and the relative costs for the major handling methods within the system. Caution should be used in applying the costs for these methods to get a total cost figure for the movement of fresh tomatoes from grower to retailer. These costs were gathered in different parts of the country and at different times of the year. Therefore, the costs shown are those developed at the particular fields and facilities studied; use of the same methods at different fields and facilities may give slightly different results. Cost data for methods within a phase of the marketing system, where these methods are interchangeable, could be used to compare the cost of one method with another. For manual harvesting and handling three methods were evaluated, using fiberboard boxes, wooden field boxes, and bins. Costs were measured for labor, equipment, and materials in worker-hours, equipment-hours, and dollars per functions performed. The equipment-hour requirements were converted to costs by using hourly ownership and operating costs. To measure the harvesting and handling operations with consistency, it was necessary to develop a breakpoint between harvesting and packing operations. For purposes of this study, harvesting included all handling including unloading the tomatoes from the field truck at the packing plant. For each harvesting and handling method, a model was constructed that included a typical size load, labor, equipment, material requirements, and costs.