Freeze stalls tomato deliveries

MIAMI — Burger King restaurants across the country have been running out of tomatoes sporadically for the past week, and that’s likely to continue in the wake of the freeze that devastated Florida’s tomato crop last month. The freeze hit growers at a time when the state normally would be supplying tomatoes for the majority of the Eastern seaboard.

The shortages have left fast-food chains, supermarkets and restaurants scrambling.

So far, the tomato shortage is having limited impact on the consumer, but that could change in coming weeks as competition for scarce tomatoes heats up.

Subway’s solution has been to reduce the size of the tomatoes it uses and switch the source from Florida to Mexico. Those moves have kept tomatoes in its restaurants.

Tags: nation and world, burger king, agriculture, tomatoes, subway, food