I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
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I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
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Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#2I wonder if they can charge more for the non-cold-chain tomatoes due to better flavor:
>Cold storage is widely used to extend shelf-life of agriculture products. For tomato, this handling results in reduced flavor quality. Our work provides major insights into the effects of chilling on consumer liking, the flavor metabolome and transcriptome, as well as DNA methylation status.
Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#3I wonder if they can charge more for the non-cold-chain tomatoes due to better flavor: >Cold storage is widely used to extend shelf-life of agriculture products. For tomato, this handling results in reduced flavor quality. Our work provides major insights into the effects of chilling on consumer liking, the flavor metabolome and transcriptome, as well as DNA methylation status. from: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/…
Yeah, I grew some tomatoes on my balcony this summer, and the way they taste compared to what I would buy at the store you would think they are completely different fruits. I would pay maybe 30% more for a sandwich with fresh tomatoes as opposed to the.... red slime that usually come on them.
Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#4I wonder if they can charge more for the non-cold-chain tomatoes due to better flavor: >Cold storage is widely used to extend shelf-life of agriculture products. For tomato, this handling results in reduced flavor quality. Our work provides major insights into the effects of chilling on consumer liking, the flavor metabolome and transcriptome, as well as DNA methylation status. from: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/…
Yeah, I grew some tomatoes on my balcony this summer, and the way they taste compared to what I would buy at the store you would think they are completely different fruits. I would pay maybe 30% more for a sandwich with fresh tomatoes as opposed to the.... red slime that usually come on them.
I keep hoping that one of these shipping container farms will support tomatoes due to this issue. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any (although some claim version N will be tomatoes). My hunch is that they can't grow tomatoes dense enough to make the economics work.
Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#5An interesting tidbit about tomatoes, and other nightshades: They contain nicotine!
Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#6I wonder if they can charge more for the non-cold-chain tomatoes due to better flavor: >Cold storage is widely used to extend shelf-life of agriculture products. For tomato, this handling results in reduced flavor quality. Our work provides major insights into the effects of chilling on consumer liking, the flavor metabolome and transcriptome, as well as DNA methylation status. from: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/…
Yeah, I grew some tomatoes on my balcony this summer, and the way they taste compared to what I would buy at the store you would think they are completely different fruits. I would pay maybe 30% more for a sandwich with fresh tomatoes as opposed to the.... red slime that usually come on them.
I've considered a "startup" in this space before. Take all the equipment, knowhow and enthusiasm of the cannabis industry and apply it to tomatoes. Grow them next to customers, under lights with highly controlled conditions and an obsessive focus on flavour. Guarantee less than 24hrs picked-to-delivered.
My research (napkin math) suggested that it would be doable at $8-10/lb, which is certainly high, but probably low enough to attract connoisseurs, high-end restaurants, and regular folks who like to treat themselves. It would be especially valuable during the winter, when you just can't get a proper tomato.
Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I grew some tomatoes on my balcony this summer, and the way they taste compared to what I would buy at the store you would think they are completely different fruits. I would pay maybe 30% more for a sandwich with fresh tomatoes as opposed to the.... red slime that usually come on them.
I've considered a "startup" in this space before. Take all the equipment, knowhow and enthusiasm of the cannabis industry and apply it to tomatoes. Grow them next to customers, under lights with highly controlled conditions and an obsessive focus on flavour. Guarantee less than 24hrs picked-to-delivered. My research (napkin math) suggested that it would be doable at $8-10/lb, which is certainly high, but probably low…
I think this would work well in places like Norway where electricity and water is cheap and people are used to food being expensive already.
Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#8An interesting tidbit about tomatoes, and other nightshades: They contain nicotine! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10552617/
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Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#9We (Optimal Agriculture) have built an autonomous growing system for high-tech greenhouses and have achieved 'superhuman' performance in a recent tomato trial. We collect a bunch of sensory data about the crop and growing environment, run cloud-based optimisation, and then control the actuators of the greenhouse autonomously (lighting, screening, heating, cooling, irrigation, etc). We are turning $100M greenhouse facilities into IoT-connected-devices and then building an intelligence layer on top.
We are now building a commercial-scale facility in the US which will produce 50,000kg of fresh produce daily. And then we will scale from there.
Our goal is to accelerate the deployment of new greenhouses around the world to increase the availability of healthy locally-grown food and to secure our food system for the future.
Find out more about our mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDJ_QdUaap4
If you want to find out more about us or generally want to geek out on tommies then give me (founder) a shout: david@optimal.ag
Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes
#10> One of my former classmates in undergrad is a Visiting Researcher at Purdue in the Agricultural Engineering department; he tells me that many tomato transporters actually own or rent fuel tankers that they fill in the South to sell at a markup in the North. In order to make some extra cash on the trip South with the empty tanker, they carry tomatoes.
> I know what you might be thinking: is it even sanitary to transport tomatoes that close to gasoline? But that is the least of the issues plaguing these transporters, the biggest one is that they lose about 12% of the tomatoes in a two-day trip.
This doesn't sound safe :(