The next day at the market, Eatwell sold out of Green Grapes in no time, which had never happened before, she says. It is up to farmers to determine whether heirloom tomatoes reach their full market potential, says Eldon, who has experimented using different breeds for sun-dried tomatoes. Consider ketchup made from yellow tomatoes, for instance. The popularity of farmers markets has contributed significantly to the retail revival of heirloom tomatoes, for practical reasons. Heirlooms generally have thinner skins than common commercial varieties, are more vulnerable to cracking and bruising and cannot take much handling, Nigel Walker says.
Commercial breeds have to put up with a lot of handling.
After being harvested by machine, they are taken to a central warehouse, distributed to trucks, hauled for hundreds or thousands of miles, dropped off at grocery stores and placed onto produce shelves. Growers of heirloom varieties have no choice but to operate differently. At Eatwell Farms, workers pick the ripe tomatoes by hand and place them directly into trays. The trays are loaded into the truck and taken to the San Francisco Ferry Plaza farmers market on Saturdays. The only person to handle the tomato besides the picker is the consumer, Walker says.