Red Tomato: A Local Organization Bringing Truly Fresh Produce to a Grocery Store Near You.

Sarabeth Matilsky
August 24, 2002

By now, you've probably heard people talking about "Fair Trade" coffee. The Fair Trade label means that the farmers were paid a living wage for their beans, usually much higher than market value. The fair trade revolution is catching on in many places, and efforts to ensure equitable profits for farmers (often in undeveloped nations) have been pioneered by Equal Exchange (EE), an organization based in Canton, Mass.

According to their website, EE "was founded in 1986 to create a new approach to trade, one that includes informed consumers, honest and fair trade relationships and cooperative principles. As a worker-owned co-op, we have accomplished this by offering consumers fairly traded gourmet coffee direct from small-scale farmer co-ops in Latin America, Africa and Asia."

Now, EE is focusing their efforts closer to home, with a new spin-off non-profit organization called Red Tomato. Red Tomato acts as a direct broker between New England's farmers and a growing number of grocery stores in the Boston area, ensuring that farmers get paid fairly for their crops. Harvest Co-op, Bread and Circus, and even some Stop & Shop supermarkets are getting in on the act. As it turns out, buying fresh, local produce is beneficial not only to regional growers—it tastes better for us consumers, too!

Red Tomato's produce is fresher because they deliver it fresh within 1-2 days after harvest. Compare that to conventional produce wholesalers, who regularly transport their wares from California. Their produce routinely requires several days of truck travel and a 1-5 day stay at a distribution warehouse, not to mention a huge amount of fossil fuel to carry it across the continent.

It's one of those rare cases where, apparently, everyone wins: local growers get fair prices for their produce, local stores get your business, and you get delicious, fresh-off-the-farm fruits and vegetables with incomparable taste. Who can argue with a business model like that?