Kitchen Garden Forum

Following on from the post on Tomato cuttings and the discussion about anonymous tasteless supermarket tomatoes, I've decided to start a one-woman campaign to ask Supermarkets to start labelling the varieties of tomatoes they sell by name, in the same way that they label apples (Cox, Braeburn, etc) so that we know what we're getting.
I've e-mailed Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda (via the Contact Us section of their websites) to ask for them to start doing this and will wait to see what reason they give for not doing so.
Anybody care to join in?

Good on you Primrose, but i will sit on the sidelines for this one, but i do wish you well.

Hi Primrose

What a good idea - count me in. Although 99.9% of
them are tasteless (which is more to do with the way
they are grown I would think rather than the variety),
every now and then you get a good one. I do save the
seed of these but would be good to have a name to
go with it.

Westi

Primrose wrote:Anybody care to join in?

I'll not bother, thanks. I did all my campaigning for this years ago, and it seemed to have worked. Shopping for something for our tea this evening, of the supermarkets I went into here are the tomato varieties they currently have in stock:

Somerfield:
• Josefini
• Sunstream
• Amoroso
• Classy

Marks & Spencer:
• Santini
• Rosa
• Jester
• Piccoloni
• Claret

And on the Sainsbury's website:
• Pomodorino
• Jubilee
• Vittorio

I don't want to register with Tesco's so I don't know what they've got on offer, but Temptation is one that I remember they've been promoting lately. Perhaps we could make overtures to the retailers to display the variety names more prominently, for customers who are unwilling to scrutinize the small print.

I've just bought some Tigerella tomatoes from my local market. A good old-fashioned variety, absolutely delicious sliced in a cheese sandwich for me lunch.

No varieties listed on Tesco website unless Baby Plum is a variety, but I doubt it.

I quite often look for the variety on tomato packaging. In Tescos the variety is often, but not always, stated, unless the print is so small I just cant see it.

I have been buying 'Tesco's Finest' tomatoes on the vine recently and they are stated to be "Amoroso" and certainly taste of tomato, almost like home grown.

Hi Monika,
Certainly Amoroso and another variety called Aranca sold in a named packet in Morrisson's are very tasty but more expensive.
What amazes me is that you can buy Amoroso grown on the vine in Holland at two thirds of the price of those grown in the UK! Why?
I actually prefer those grown in Holland because they are generally riper than the UK ones. Most of the packeted vine tomatoes in Morrisson's are named varieties.
If anybody buys a tomato that looks translucent and expects to get the taste of a home grown tomato then they really are expecting too much.
JB.

I think we all tend to forget over the Winter and Spring, just how good a homegrown, freshly picked tomato tastes, until we experience the first one each year.