1. 1/10/2015 New Jersey Tomatoes Make the Trip From the Vine to the Shelf - NYTimes.com
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In Jars and Cans
The following are among the
companies making products from
New Jersey tomatoes:
BERGENFIELD Two Guys Food
Group: twoguysfoodgroup.com or
(201) 954­6051.
EDISON Colavita U.S.A.: (732)
404­8300 or colavita.com.
LEBANON IAM International:
iaminternationalinc.com; (908)
713­9651.
LITTLE EGG HARBOR Jersey
Naturals: (609) 618­4969 or
jerseynaturals.com.
MILFORD Phillips Farms: On­site
market at 290 Church Road;
phillipsfarms.com.
PARSIPPANY B & G Foods:
NEW JERSEY DINING | TOMATO PRODUCTS
Making the Trip From the Vine to the Shelf
Ben Solomon for The New York Times
RIPE FOR THE PICKING Marc Phillips gathering tomatoes on his farm in Milford, N.J., which go into sauce and other
products.
By TAMMY LA GORCE
Published: August 10, 2012
ROCKY HILL, N.J. — First Field ketchup is found at barbecues where
“the burgers are Kobe beef,” according to Theresa Viggiano, a founder
of the company with her husband, Patrick Leger. When the couple
were testing recipes as the company was getting started in 2008,
however, the ketchup was more likely to be in their relatives’
refrigerators.
“We’d give it to family members, and
they’d say: ‘That was nice. I used it in
my meatloaf,’ ” said Ms. Viggiano, 36,
of Griggstown.
Nowadays, the ketchup, which sells
for $6.95 to $9 for an eight­ounce
bottle, is in dozens of Whole Foods
and specialty stores.
But one thing has stayed constant since the meatloaf days,
and that is First Field’s main ingredient: tomatoes
exclusively from New Jersey. First Field is one of a number
of companies that make canned or jarred products using
what is arguably the state’s most famous crop. On its label,
the words “Jersey Ketchup” appear right below “First
Field.”
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2. 1/10/2015 New Jersey Tomatoes Make the Trip From the Vine to the Shelf - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/nyregion/making-the-trip-from-the-vine-to-the-shelf.html?_r=0 2/3
bgfoods.com.
PRINCETON First Field: first­
field.com.
Related
Spotlight | Asbury Park:
Margaritas, Complete With Salt Air
(August 12, 2012)
Times Topic: New Jersey Dining
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Enlarge This Image
Ben Solomon for The New York Times
A jar of First Field Jersey Ketchup.
Enlarge This Image
Ben Solomon for The New York Times
Patrick Leger and his wife, Theresa
Viggiano, in their test kitchen in Rocky
Hill, N.J.
“We decided that showcasing New Jersey on the label
brings an authenticity to it,” Ms. Viggiano said during a
recent interview at the company’s small, tidy test kitchen in
an office park here. “It’s surprising how many people have
this memory of buying a tomato from a farm stand in New
Jersey.”
The ketchup is no longer produced in Rocky Hill because
the couple cannot make enough of it in their limited space;
since late 2010, batches of First Field have been made at
the Rutgers Food Innovation Center in Bridgeton, a larger
space. (The owners declined to say how much they
produced each year.) But Ms. Viggiano and Mr. Leger
maintain the test kitchen to tinker with new recipes.
Scott Stark, co­founder of the company that makes Two
Guys Jersey Tomato Sauce, which is based in Bergenfield,
similarly decided to tap into the lore of the New Jersey
tomato when he and his partner and college friend, David
Stoff, 33, of Fort Lee, began making their product in 2010.
The company estimates it will sell “upwards of 30,000
cases” of 12 jars each this year, according to Mr. Stark, in
1,000 stores as far south as Virginia. Like First Field, it uses
canned New Jersey tomatoes when fresh tomatoes are not
in season.
“The tomato is the best thing that could have happened to
New Jersey,” said Mr. Stark, 33, who lives in Manhattan.
“People know it and love it.”
First Field and Two Guys are among nine companies
making tomato products that are licensed to use the “Made
With Jersey Fresh” logo on their labels, according to Lynne
Richmond, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey State
Department of Agriculture. Producers of tomato sauce
include Jersey Naturals of Little Egg Harbor, which makes
the Mia Cucina brand, and IAM International of Lebanon,
which makes Ethnic Cottage products.
To qualify for Jersey Fresh labeling, a product must be
made with 100 percent tomatoes from a grower licensed by the department’s Jersey Fresh
Quality Grading Program, Ms. Richmond said.
Besides those officially designated products, smaller­scale makers of New Jersey tomato
products abound at local farm stands and farmers’ markets. Among them are Marc and
Holly Phillips, co­owners of the 200­acre Phillips Farms in Milford, who make tomato
sauce, ketchup, chili sauce, tomato butter and two varieties of salsa from their tomatoes
and sell them at their on­site farm store, as well as at farmers’ markets in New Jersey and
Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. (All are $5.50 a jar.)
Mr. Phillips, 48, grows 100,000 pounds of tomatoes and estimates that he sells 95 percent
of them fresh at retail. Still, he said, “there’s a big demand” for the other products.
Two Guys buys all its tomatoes in New Jersey, including from a “low­key family farm in
Swedesboro,” Mr. Stark said, but the fruit eventually ends up at a processing center in
Farmingdale, N.Y., on Long Island, where Two Guys’ sauce is produced using a “co­
packer,” a company that cooks it using Two Guys’ recipe. Its 25­ounce jars, which sell for
$3.99 to $6.99, can be found in Whole Foods, Fairway, ShopRite and Stop and Shop.
At First Field, Ms. Viggiano and Mr. Leger grow about 10 percent of their own tomatoes on
a two­acre farm they tend in Kingston, and they also source from Katona Farms Inc. in
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3. 1/10/2015 New Jersey Tomatoes Make the Trip From the Vine to the Shelf - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/nyregion/making-the-trip-from-the-vine-to-the-shelf.html?_r=0 3/3
A version of this article appeared in print on August 12, 2012, on page NJ9 of the New York edition with the headline:
Making the Trip From the Vine to the Shelf.
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New Jersey
Chesterfield. They have avoided signing on with a co­packer because, Mr. Leger said, “we
work with fresh fruit, and that means a lot of variability.”
Both First Field and Two Guys supplement their tomato­buying when necessary, turning
to B & G Foods, a company based in Parsippany that packs tomatoes grown in Gloucester,
Cumberland and Salem Counties. According to Marvin Schwinder, B & G’s marketing
director, about a dozen farms account for the tomatoes that land in the company’s
Williamstown packing center each summer. B & G processes 30,000 to 40,000 tons of
New Jersey tomatoes each year, Mr. Schwinder said.
B & G’s own canned, crushed tomatoes are available in stores under the generic­sounding
name Jersey Fresh Crushed Tomatoes. (Outlets include Kings supermarkets; a 28­ounce
can costs about $1.99.) The company also packs the canned, crushed tomatoes sold by
Colavita U.S.A., the company based in Edison and known nationally for its Italian imports,
especially extra­virgin olive oil.
Colavita added the tomatoes to its product line four years ago, according to its chairman
emeritus and founder, John J. Profaci Sr., 75, of Westfield. They are sold at Kings and
ShopRite for about $1.99 for a 28­ounce can.
“Tomatoes are a natural line extension for us,” he said. “There’s a trinity in our industry:
olive oil, pasta and tomatoes.”
Mr. Profaci, who said he had been in the food business for more than half a century,
added: “There is no tomato in this country or in Italy that’s as good as the New Jersey
tomato. Some of the characteristics might be good, but there’s nothing that can match it
overall.”
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