Davis, California, USA
July 25, 2024
Norfolk Healthy Produce and Orsetti Seed Company are excited to announce their collaboration to develop unique processing tomatoes enriched with anthocyanins using Norfolk’s proprietary technology. The tomatoes’ striking purple color, combined with the power of antioxidant anthocyanins, promises to offer a novel choice to consumers seeking nutritious salsas, juices, and sauces.
Norfolk Healthy Produce launched their first fresh market purple tomato products this year to significant demand. Nathan Pumplin, CEO of Norfolk, stated, “Our first retail product, a fresh snacker grown by Red Sun Farms and marketed under the name Empress Limited Edition Tomatoes, is showing robust sales and reorders in grocery stores.” Norfolk also for the first time made seeds available direct to home gardeners in the US, whose enthusiasm vastly outstripped the number of orders forecasted.
“In addition to fresh tomatoes, we’ve tested purple tomato salsa and juice product concepts with consumers and seen an overwhelmingly positive response,” Pumplin explained. “Meeting this demand for value-added prepared foods requires purple tomato varieties that can be produced economically and with high quality. We are thrilled to embark on this path with a strong partner in Orsetti Seed Company.”
Orsetti Seed Company, a family-owned business with a rich history of breeding vegetables adapted to California’s environment, is known for its robust breeding program for processing tomatoes. These tomatoes are optimized for quality specs, yield and disease resistance, meeting the needs of both farmers and food companies. Doug Dixon, General Manager of Orsetti, commented, “This collaboration with Norfolk allows us to think outside the box and creates excitement internally to be a part of the development and marketing of new innovative products that offer unique advantages compared to anything currently on the market.”
Norfolk and Orsetti are combining their complementary resources to develop purple processing tomato varieties to fuel the demand for novel products that offer health benefits along with beautiful color and superb flavor. Norfolk’s success has shown that consumers embrace bioengineering as a technology to deliver superior products, and this market acceptance opens the door for Norfolk to bring its proprietary anthocyanin antioxidant technology to the processed tomato segment. The new varieties will be developed, tested and grown in California, both in the field and with canneries.
About the Companies
Norfolk Healthy Produce, Inc. develops and markets innovative varieties of fruits and vegetables that deliver exceptional health benefits, taste, and differentiation to consumers and suppliers. Their initial product portfolio leverages plant-based bioengineering to produce tomatoes enriched with anthocyanins, antioxidants found in blueberries, blackberries and eggplants, and known for their numerous health benefits and their role in an anti-inflammatory diet.
Orsetti Seed Company, Inc. is one of California’s leading producers of high quality vegetable seeds, with special emphasis on proprietary hybrid varieties of processing tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, peppers and open-pollinated lettuce. With headquarters in Hollister, California, Orsetti Seeds maintains a leadership position in the development of international seed varieties that are distributed worldwide. Driven by the markets they serve, Orsetti Seeds has a history of innovation, dedication and pride in their products, their customers and their staff.
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