Locally sourced greenhouse tomatoes will be used in North American Wendy’s
Earlier this summer, Wendy’s made an exciting announcement that’s sure to boost business for a lot of growers in North America. The popular restaurant chain will be sourcing vine-ripened, greenhouse grown tomatoes from across North America to use in their products moving forward, mostly in their Canadian and U.S. restaurants to start.
With quality and freshness top of mind in Wendy’s decision, the decision is sure to benefit the restaurant’s customers and North American commercial tomato farming alike.
“We’re making this change for a variety of reasons that will benefit our customers, but taste and quality are the top factors and we are excited about the superior flavors we can achieve with this change. Additionally, greenhouse farms provide supply predictability and quality assurance benefits—including continuity of supply; protection of crops from harsh weather, safe, indoor growing conditions; and a significant reduction of chemical pesticides used on the plants,” said Dennis Hecker, senior vice president of quality assurance for Wendy’s.
The move will help growers across both countries as well as boost the local economies the tomatoes are coming from. Most of the tomatoes will from regions on the West Coast, the Pacific Northwest, the Southeast and the Great Lakes.
“We’re working with geographically dispersed partners throughout North America and our goal is to source tomatoes as close to our restaurants as possible. Our goal is to supply each restaurant from the same supplier nearly year-round, while balancing the replanting riming for each supplier to ensure assured supply throughout the year,” Liliana Esposito, chief communications officer for Wendy’s said.
The transition is expected to be completed near the beginning of 2019.
