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JAY CRIDLINIts Wimauma farm suffered $300,000 in equipment damage during the storms. Crops were largely destroyed.
RIVERVIEW - Nursing half a cup of coffee, Tony Torres pushes through a heavy door into the main shipping and receiving floor of the Tomato Thyme Corp. packing plant in Riverview.
About 15 employees stand, stretch and follow Torres to the main packing line. At precisely 8 a.m., with a simple flick of a switch, Torres starts the machine and wordlessly steps back to watch his workers sift through thousands of Red Diamond and Roma tomatoes.
"The line is the center of the company," said Torres, Tomato Thyme's production manager. "Without the line, the whole company doesn't run."
Twenty-four hours later, the best of the batch are on the shelves at Publix stores around Atlanta, Jacksonville and Miami. It's a familiar routine, handled smoothly and profitably by both Tomato Thyme's management and migrant employees, since this packing plant opened three years ago.
But it has been a trying summer for the 8-year-old company. Hurricanes Jeanne and Frances caused some $300,000 in equipment damage to the 56-acre farm in Wimauma, potentially cutting in half the annual profit and temporarily halting Tomato Thyme's rapid growth.
"It's been a lesson in how nature can affect the growers in this state," said corporate financial officer Alan Warren. "We would have had our best year ever."
Tomato Thyme's roots go back more than a decade. Don Bither was a Sarasota man selling Plant City tomatoes from the back of his van when he met Javier Torres, a local 19-year-old fruit and vegetable merchant, in the early 1990s. The two men developed a rapport and opened their own tomato farm in 1992.
By 1996, the men had scraped together enough loans and personal capital to start Tomato Thyme, so named because they also sold herbs and vegetables. Warren, a native Briton who had served as a financial adviser, was brought on as a full-time CFO.
The company has grown every year, and in 2000 the three decided to focus solely on tomatoes. The company has between 35 and 65 regular and seasonal employees throughout the year, depending on the picking season. Things have been going quite well, with $10.5-million in revenue last year and expectations for even more this year.
But Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne put a serious damper on things, as they did across the state.
Tomato Thyme may have been more vulnerable to hurricane damage than other Hillsborough tomato farms because of a covering system, known as high tunnel production, designed to protect the crops from harsh weather.
The farm's 100,000 tomato plants are covered by a series of 300-foot-long mini-greenhouses, each covering three rows of tomatoes. The structures are good at keeping out heavy summer rains, which cause a great deal of damage to tomato farms, but they aren't designed to withstand hurricane-force winds.
So when Frances blew through east Hillsborough, the structures' plastic "roofs" were ripped apart, exposing their hooplike arches to the high winds. Many were bent or broken, and the soil was saturated with water. Warren estimates the company's equipment losses to be about $300,000.
The company had to replant 75 percent of its tomato plants after Frances; then about 50 percent were lost during Jeanne. In all, Warren estimates the company will lose up to 75 percent of its fall crop. That means the company has had to import more tomatoes from Michigan, Ohio and elsewhere in Florida at two and three times the normal price.
Ultimately, Tomato Thyme profits may be down by 50 percent. Little new equipment will be purchased, and a 119-acre tract of farmland the company owns in Myakka City will have to wait to be developed.
"This is probably the first year that we haven't looked at substantial growth," Warren said.
But the company hasn't lost sight of the big picture. Warren hopes Tomato Thyme will be able to produce 90 percent of its own tomatoes in three to five years, boosting its opportunity for profit.
He also hopes to be able to ship Red Diamond tomatoes into local Publix stores. Tomato Thyme's deal with Publix was forged while the company was still tiny. But Warren feels Tomato Thyme has grown large enough to provide tomatoes for Tampa Bay someday soon.
If nothing else, Warren is thankful the hurricanes hit in Tomato Thyme's eighth year. Had Frances and Jeanne struck five years ago, the then-fledgling company wouldn't be around today. Now, with the sturdy packinghouse in Riverview firmly established, the company is better prepared to rebuild.
"When these hurricanes come through, it's a worrying thought that this could happen every year," he said. "But if you really let that thought process in your mind, you'll never grow anything."
- Jay Cridlin can be reached at 661-2442 or cridlin@sptimes.com
TOMATO THYME CORP.WHAT: Growers, packers and shippers of Red Diamond and Roma tomatoes
WHERE: 6811 78th St. S, Riverview
WHERE TO BUY THEM: Publix stores around Miami, Jacksonville and Atlanta
WEB SITE: www.diamondtomatoes.com
PHONE: 672-7707