Big, red and tasteless

Would you rather have perfect tomatoes that taste of nothing, or tomatoes rich in taste. A consumer pushback is favouring the latter and growers are listening.

Hydroponic tomatoes look good but consumers are moving back to old-style flavourful varieties. Photo: AP / Altaf Qadri

Buying tomatoes grown hydroponically in the UAE is generally a good thing. It supports industry within the country rather than relying on imports and there is no concern about the carbon footprint incurred by transporting them from their place of origin to a local supermarket. But there’s just one problem: most of this produce has very little taste.

This is not a new phenomenon. Commercial growers of tomatoes around the world have learnt that shelf appeal in the supermarket is important to shoppers so they have tended to favour varieties that are big, red and flawless. It is only when the tomato in question is chopped up and put into, say, a salad that the almost complete lack of taste becomes readily apparent.

But now there is a consumer pushback against these taste-deficient modern varieties. Growers are taking note and finding old varieties – in particular, heirloom tomatoes, which are both flavourful and hardy – that still offer the taste that modern tomatoes do not.

Such varieties may not be as perfectly formed as some supermarket produce – heirloom tomatoes come in all shapes and sizes – but they are fit to grace any fattoush salad.