Tomato Prices Jump, Squeezing Families and Restaurants

Tomato prices have surged about 40% over the past year, feeding a wider affordability squeeze at the same time tariffs and the U.S. withdrawal from a Mexico tomato import deal strain restaurants and shoppers alike. Grocery inflation rose 3.8% in April from a y

For Isaac Bernal Carbajo, a tomato isn’t just an ingredient anymore. It’s a measure of how quickly “the simplest pleasures” are slipping away—fresh vegetables becoming “a serious financial decision for many families,” he said.

In New York City, the shift is showing up where people buy dinner. Prices for tomatoes have climbed about 40% over the past year. according to the latest Consumer Price Index—outpacing increases for other groceries like coffee. which is up 18.5%. beef roasts. up 17.8%. and frozen fish and seafood. up 12%.

The broader numbers are just as stark. A separate inflation gauge released Thursday showed overall prices increased 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the highest reading in nearly three years.

Tomatoes have become the kind of daily problem that turns into a symbol: not because they’re rare, but because they’re supposed to be easy. And right now, they’re not.

The pressure isn’t coming from a single source. Experts point to weather and supply conditions. but they also point to two pillars of President Donald Trump’s second-term policies: the Iran war and tariffs. The war has spiked gas prices and increased shipping costs. At the same time, the U.S. withdrew from a deal that allowed duty-free imports of tomatoes from Mexico. where most of America’s tomato supply comes from.

Usha Haley, a Wichita State University economist, described it as a “perfect storm of trade policy, extreme weather and Mideast policy.”

American tomato farmers saw opportunity in the withdrawal. They cheered it last July, saying it would help rebuild their shrinking industry. For consumers, the payoff has not arrived—at least not yet. Even though the U.S. withdrew from the Mexico tomato deal in July. the change took time to reach the produce aisle. with more imports showing up in late winter and early spring.

By the time shoppers started noticing, prices were already moving. Prices have gone up across all types of tomatoes, with grape tomatoes increasing the most.

When the tomatoes arrived, they were slapped with a 17% tariff.

Brett Massimino, a Virginia Commonwealth University business professor, said “Tariffs are undeniably a big driver of the price inflation,” adding that because the U.S. relies on Mexico for the majority of its tomato supply, changes in trade policy can have a large impact.

The scale of the tariff hit has been dramatic. U.S. tariffs collected on tomatoes jumped from just $16,424 in 2024 to nearly $4.6 million, according to federal data—a 27,879% increase.

Shoppers have responded with anger that looks ordinary but moves fast. In the produce aisle, outraged customers have pulled out their phones and posted videos, saying prices had quadrupled. Some even talked about planting a garden to avoid paying as much as $8 a pound.

For households, the tomato debate shows up in shopping carts. For businesses that rely on tomatoes, it lands in payroll and pricing decisions.

MarginEdge, which tracks prices for restaurants, says grape tomatoes have increased most—65% in just a month—but that prices have gone up across all types of tomatoes.

Phillip Coles, a professor of supply chain management at Lehigh University, said prices should drop later in the year when domestically grown tomatoes are harvested. He also said higher prices can encourage farmers to increase planting to meet demand, but doing so takes longer because of lead time.

Until then, restaurants are absorbing the squeeze.

Snarf’s Sandwiches is one example. The chain puts a tomato in nearly every sandwich it makes. Wayne Humphrey. the chief operating officer of Snarf’s. said cases of tomatoes went from costing him $27 to $93 in the space of a year. He described it as piling onto other rising expenses, including bread and beef, along with increased labor costs.

Humphrey said that “That single ingredient now costs us more than $1.7 million in additional spend annually,” and that “The math is getting harder to ignore.”

The result is a familiar American tradeoff—one that arrives on menus and in grocery aisles at the same time. Tomatoes may be ubiquitous, but right now, they’re also becoming a measure of how far a family’s budget can stretch before something ordinary turns expensive.

(Associated Press writer Dee-Ann Durbin contributed to this report.)

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