Compared to the lazy, pampered existence of garden grown tomatoes, commercially grown tomatoes have a tough life. Excluding the differences in soil and growing conditions (rich compost, tomato food, dutiful watering), Fresh Market commercial tomatoes are harvested green and ripened off the plant. As any tomato garden grower will tell you, vine ripened tomatoes are more flavorful.

[ Roma and Paste Tomatoes for processing into sauces, ketchup, pastes, and sometimes called Process Tomatoes, are machine harvested when ripe, sorted & cleaned fast, and are in the can 6 hours after being picked! (1) ].

From the time they are harvested by hand, fresh market commercial roma tomatoes endure a lot of handling and treatment. Their long road to the supermarket begins in a plastic bucket where the harvester first places them. When that bucket is full, they are carefully emptied into a bin on a flatbed truck or a gondola. The bin can hold a 1,000 pounds of tomatoes and the gondola 8 to 12 tons. Special care must be taken when the tomatoes are being moved and emptied to avoid bruising. Bins and gondola's cannot be overfilled. In some operations, a conveyor belt is used which reduces damage and harvest time.

From the field, the tomatoes are taken to a packinghouse where they placed in a dump tank of water for a short time, then moved along the line to be brushed, rinsed, dried, sorted, and graded. During this time, tomatoes are susceptible to bruising, cuts and punctures.

"These injuries can interfere with ripening and promote postharvest decay during gassing, handling, and shipping operations." (2)

After being mechanically sorted to size, the tomatoes are jumble-packed into unwaxed, fiberboard cartons to an approximate weight of 25 pounds. It is at this point that tomatoes are inspected, if required by the Federal Marketing Order. Afterwards, the 25-pound cartons are stacked on standarized pallets (40 inches by 48 inches) to a limit of 80 cartons, 10 cartons per layer, 8 layers high. (2)

The next stage for these commercially grown roma tomatoes gets interesting. To speed up the ripening of these green tomatoes, ethylene (a natural ripening hormone produces by all vegetables) is "shot" or applied on the pallets of tomatoes in a special ripening room where they are exposed to the ethylene for 1 to 3 days. "By treating tomatoes with ethylene before packing, immature fruit and fruit with decay can be sorted out before shipping, making the quality more uniform." (2)