Bon Appétit threatens tomato boycott

Florida tomato pickers are paid the same as they were 30 years ago.

Bon Appétit Management Co. joined with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in late April to call on Florida commodity tomato growers to give migrant pickers a penny per pound pay raise and allow third-party monitoring of worker treatment. The company says it will pay the extra costs associated with the pay raise or stop purchasing 5 million pounds of tomatoes on the commodity market annually.

About 33,000 workers pick more than 1.3 billion pounds of tomatoes each year in the state, according to the Florida Tomato Committee. They are reportedly paid 45 cents per 32-pound bucket, the same wage as 30 years ago.

Palo Alto-based Bon Appétit, a socially responsible food service provider operating 400 university and corporate cafés in 29 states, aims to purchase at least 20 percent of its produce from farms within 150 miles of the cafes it serves. In winter though, customers still want produce.

"I think that a company that is interested in sustainability has to work on both ends," says Maisie Greenawalt, Bon Appetit's vice president. "We have to work with the small, local producers and we have to work with the large commodity producers. We can't pretend that one doesn't exist. Customer expectations don't bear that out."

But when Bon Appétit presented its offer to one of the state's largest growers, they "very nicely said thanks, but no thanks," she says. The company does have "one lead with a relatively large grower," she says.

Bon Appétit and CIW were likely turned down because Florida pickers often earn close to double the state minimum wage, says Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers' Exchange. Additionally, it is impossible to tell which customers receive which commodity tomatoes, creating legal issues around paying workers more for some of their work.