Forum: cooking.stackexchange.com
Tags: <storage><food-processing><packaging>
Title: Why don't they sell frozen tomatoes like other frozen vegetables and fruits?
Question: Why aren't frozen tomatoes available like frozen broccoli, peas, peaches, or strawberries? Why are tomatoes only canned or fresh?  Example:  http://www.peapod.com/search_results.jhtml?searchText=frozen+tomatoes

Answers:
sents: text: Freeze one, thaw it and see.
text: The liquid separates out and leaves a pulpy structure behind.
text: Tomato sauce (no chunks) thaws much better and separated liquid can be stirred back in well enough.
text: Canned works as we all know
text: so no one is bothering trying to grow a freezer-friendly tomato, yet.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/6638/Pat Sommer
score: 20
sents: text: They are :)
text: (site in French).
text: However, if you look at the reviews, the average customer isn't too pleased with the product, essentially for the reasons mentioned by @PatSommer
text: (watery, poor texture, etc.).
text: Don't forget that canning transforms tomatoes in a way which makes them particularly useful for sauces and the like, which is another reason why it is such a popular method of conservation.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/31434/Levi Botelho
score: 5
sents: text: There is no advantage to freezing over canning, and from many perspective there are disadvantages (discolouration, mushiness, overall general cellular destruction)
text: The embodied energy required to can is also much less than to keep them frozen, so this combined with disadvantages of freezing tomatoes, manufacturers choose to use canning
text: Yes, you can freeze dry tomatoes into a powder, it's not that great compared to freeze dried fruit powders though Dried tomatoes
text: (think sun dried tomatoes) are excellent, but are generally not a useful substitute for fresh tomatoes
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/3203/TFD
score: 4
sents: text: Beside the reasons in the other answers, tomatoes really don't like low temperatures.
text: They change their aroma and texture already at fridge temperature.
text: They will go through the same temperature region when freezing and thawing, so they will get that bad taste of a cooled tomato.
text: They won't have the texture of a fridge tomato though, because the freezer will do a larger change - instead of getting unpleasantly hard, they'll get limp and their juices will separate.
text: To sum it up, canned tomatoes don't taste like fresh tomatoes, but at least they taste like cooked tomatoes.
text: Frozen then thawed tomatoes don't taste neither like fresh, nor like cooked.
text: They are just not that good to eat.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638/rumtscho
score: 2
sents: text: Frozen tomatoes will lose all their structure, so are only of use for cooking.
text: Canned tomatoes works very well for cooking and are cheap.
text: The taste is also improved by the canning process, but not by freezing.
text: So I can’t see how anyone can charge enough for frozen tomatoes to as to make a profit.
text: But I have frozen my own tomatoes.
text: To do so, blanch them in boiling water, or cook them down into a source before freezing.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1482/Ian
score: 2

Summary of the answers:
The structure, colour and flavour of whole tomatoes is harmed by the freezing process, although frozen tomato sauce and freeze-dried tomato are possible. More importantly, canned tomatoes are cheap and the process makes them more useful for making sauces and similar dishes.
Canning is considered a better way of preserving tomatoes than freezing because it produces better results and is realtive cheap.