An oversupply of truss tomatoes ahead of Christmas is forcing some growers to sell their produce below the cost of production.
Matt McInerney, who manages a family-run farm in South Australia’s Virginia region, said no tomatoes were being thrown out but growers like himself were lowering prices to move some of the volume. "We've had a bit of a perfect storm in our industry, in that we had the end of our last season interrupted by the fruit fly outbreak and the market disruptions that caused, but it's mainly down to the tomato brown rugose virus," he said." typically, on average, produces about one third of Australia's tomatoes … but we are returning to trade.
"Now, 30 hectares of production in predominantly truss tomatoes, puts four million trays of truss tomatoes on the market more than what there was, say, four years ago."Even the mum and dad farms have doubled and tripled because they had a few good years.