Soaring tomato prices eating into some San Diego restaurant’s profits

No matter how you slice ’em, tomatoes cost a pretty penny these days.

“Right now, it’s a lot of vegetables, not just tomatoes, but tomatoes are insane,” exclaimed Lefty’s Chicago Pizzeria co-owner Luren Hodson

Lefty’s is one of the San Diego area restaurants feeling the pinch.

According to the consumer price index released last week, a pound of tomatoes costs an average of $2.26 in March.

That’s a 15% jump from the month before, and a 23% increase compared with a year ago.

Hodson says that 23% leap has translated into a massive cost increase for her restaurant. She showed NBC 7 a box of tomatoes she said that went from $27 to $80 in just the past few months.

Part of that sticker shock is due to a deep freeze in Florida and rainy weather in Mexico, which both contributed to a shrunken crop size.

Tariffs also played a part. Most of San Diego’s fresh tomatoes come from Mexico, which was hit last year with a new Trump administration tariff of 17%.

“We used to pay, let’s say, $36 for 25 pounds,” said El Zarape manager Francisco Ulloa. “Now we’re paying $56.”

Ulloa said that’s a steep price to pay for his Mexican restaurants business, where roughly 60% of their menu items contain tomatoes.

As a result, Ulloa said, they’re placing fewer orders and considering temporarily taking some things off the menu.

“We try to keep quality of food, but with these prices, it’s very hard to keep it on top of the menu,” Ulloa said.

Back at Lefty’s, Hodson shared the many menu items that require tomatoes: “My Chicago dog is nothing without a fresh tomato, my margarita pizza — all my salads, you know, would be nothing without it.”

Tomato prices could continue to rise, since they’re transported on trucks that rely on diesel fuel, which is near record high levels in California, at $7.50 a gallon.