{"id":672924,"date":"2026-05-29T21:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/672924\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T21:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:58:08","slug":"why-have-tomato-prices-surged-nearly-40-in-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/672924\/","title":{"rendered":"Why have tomato prices surged nearly 40% in a year?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomatoes are the latest popular food to take a bite out of consumer wallets, joining items like coffee<\/a>, bananas and beef<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As of April, government data shows the fruit’s prices were up nearly 40% from a year ago, compared with\u00a017% for food costs<\/a>\u00a0overall. Across the U.S., tomatoes cost an average of $2.69 a pound, a record high, according to Federal Reserve\u00a0figures<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By comparison, coffee prices in April had risen 18.5% from the trailing 12 months, ground beef had jumped 19% and seafood was up 12%, labor data shows.<\/p>\n

Several factors are driving up tomato prices, David Branch, sector manager at the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, told CBS News. The U.S. in July imposed a 17% tariff on Mexican tomatoes after withdrawing from a three-decade-old trade agreement that enabled duty-free tomato imports from Mexico. Although scuttling the deal benefited American farmers, consumers are feeling the pain.<\/p>\n

U.S. tariffs collected on tomatoes have surged from just $16,424 in 2024 to nearly $4.6 million, according to federal data. In 2025, nearly 90% of U.S. tomato imports came from Mexico, Branch noted.<\/p>\n

“Because the U.S. relies on Mexico for the majority of its tomato supply, any changes in trade policy can have a large impact,” added Brett Massimino, a Virginia Commonwealth University business professor.<\/p>\n

Bad weather and disease are also indirectly pushing up tomato prices by hurting production in Mexico and Florida, reducing supplies.<\/p>\n

“What’s making it unique is the fact that there is a shortage of tomatoes and there isn’t a shortage of other produce,” said Phillip Coles, a professor of supply chain management at Lehigh University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Food industry analyst Phil Lempert, known as the SupermarketGuru, also said the\u00a0Iran war<\/a>\u00a0is fueling higher tomato costs through higher oil prices. “Because of the Iran war, the price of transporting tomatoes is more expensive.”<\/p>\n

Tomatoes are typically shipped on refrigerated trucks that require more diesel to power both the vehicles and the refrigerators housing the tomatoes, he noted.<\/p>\n

“When you have a major rise in a core cost component, it winds up having a big impact in the end,” Massimino told CBS News. “It’s a weird situation that all these things are coming together at once.”<\/p>\n

\n Edited by<\/p>\n

Alain Sherter<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tomatoes are the latest popular food to take a bite out of consumer wallets, joining items like coffee,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,11529,101],"class_list":["post-672924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-consumer-price-index","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}