I see Steve Lansburg’s point about vine tomatoes - that in explaining the price differential between tomatoes sold on the vine and those picked off the vine, you can’t simply talk about the reasons for a demand differential but also have to talk about why suppliers don’t rush in to fill demand. But the hubris of writing the article when you a) don’t bother to learn about tomato production and b) have never eaten a tomato yourself is stunning.
Let me just add the obvious: that consumers buy "vine ripened tomatoes" because agribusiness and year-round shipping of tomatoes has given rise to mealy winter tomatoes that have no flavor. The vine-ripened ones are generally hothouse raised to look like sun-ripened ones with color but no flavor - still winter tomatoes. No matter, the marketing gimmick speaks to a deep hunger among bourgeois consumers for ripe tomatoes in February, even June.
On the supply side, tomatoes on the vine do cost more to ship, and it’s not because you can’t fit as many in a box. Hothouse agriculture offers some benefit over picking tomatoes when they’re green and gassing them to "ripen" them; it’s also a less efficient process than field agribusiness equivalents. Also, ripened tomatoes, even "ripened" tomatoes, transport less efficiently than their green/winter tomato counterparts. We might also want to be sure that we’re talking purely competitive markets here. Landsburg writes, "There are only two ways a single good can sell for two different prices. Either a monopolist is manipulating the market (unlikely in the case of tomatoes), or the price difference reflects a real difference in costs." But two handbags can sell for vastly different prices, because consumers perceive that the two handbags are not in fact the same good. Sometimes, being marketed, sold or priced as "luxury" creates the price differential itself. Now, tomatoes, not being branded, don’t work like handbags, but supermarket distiburtion and retail are not competitive industries in the strictest sense. The effects of oligopoly are not out the question.
Meanwhile, now the farmer’s market is starting up again, I’m counting the days til the local tomatoes come in.
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