Since last month, the Consumer Affairs Ministry has asked the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) to sell tomatoes at a lower price.

At first, the subsidy rate was set at 90 per kilogramme. As prices went down, the subsidy rate went down, too, so that consumers would get the most advantage.

“The last change to the retail price was on August 15, when it went down to 50/- per kg. As of August 20, the price has gone down even more, to 40 per kg,” a government statement said on Friday.

It said that so far, the two agencies have bought more than 15 lakh kilogrammes of tomatoes, which are being sold to retail customers in the country’s big consumption centres.

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These places are Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan (Jaipur and Kota), Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, and Prayagraj), and Bihar (Patna, Muzaffarpur, Arrah, and Buxar). NCCF and NAFED buy tomatoes from mandis in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh.

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Tomatoes are a staple ingredient in Indian cuisine, but the recent monsoon rains have caused supply disruptions at a time of year when production is generally low. As a result, the government has organised mobile vans for subsidised sales.

Higher food prices are having a wider impact across the business, and are contributing to headline inflation rates that are beyond the central bank’s medium-term target. This is why many McDonald’s and Subway locations have removed tomatoes from their menus, claiming quality difficulties.

Mother Dairy, a New Delhi-based retailer of milk and vegetables, reported a 300% increase in sales of tomato puree over the previous 15 days. Puree output at Indian consumer goods company Dabur has been increased to suit rising demand.

BigBasket, Tata’s online shopping platform, saw a 175% increase in puree sales in early July, with senior executive Seshu Kumar reporting that customers were purchasing 50% less kilogrammes of fresh tomatoes each purchase.

Amazon reported a fivefold increase in demand for tomato puree and a thirtypercent increase in ketchup sales over the past month.

Tomato paste accounts for about 40% of the weight of a normal puree pack, with the remaining 60% being water.Wednesday in New Delhi, tomato prices were 199 Indian rupees a kilogramme, up from about 30 Indian rupees in April. The cost of puree has been the same so far.

As the price of tomatoes in India rose above $1.22 per kilogramme, I began experimenting with tomato ketchup in Indian gravies. Pravieen Sridhar, 34, who owns a washing service in Chennai, said that not everyone in his family was a fan.

According to Google Trends, interest in “tomato puree” and “tomato puree 1kg price” has reached an all-time high in India during the past several weeks.

Other vegetable costs have also increased as a result of crop damage and transportation difficulties brought on by the rain. The annual retail inflation rate in India jumped to 4.81 percent in June due to rising food costs, ending four months of decline and adding to speculation that the central bank will maintain its current interest rate policy until at least the middle of 2024.

In India, where the average monthly per capita income is projected to be around $200 in 2022-2023, vegetables are a politically contentious item. Onion price increases, another staple in Indian food, have toppled several state governments in the country’s history.

Large and small food retailers alike are feeling the pinch of sky-high tomato costs. Birju, a vendor in a New Delhi business sector, said he now only uses the pricey ingredient as a garnish, and only when customers ask for it. Birju serves an inexpensive bread-and-pea street meal that usually comes with tomatoes.

He pointed to a single tomato on his cart while he cooked on a sweltering afternoon and added, “Customers understand I am not using it because I haven’t increased prices.”

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The fresh tomato use has decreased while the use of purees has increased, according to Pradeep Shetty of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India.

To paraphrase one chef, “chefs are also trying to find ways to bring the sourness of tomatoes through other agents like tamarind.”

The proprietor of a popular restaurant in south Delhi, known for his tomato-based cottage cheese gravies, has raised the price of his dishes by 12 percent.

He warned that new pricing considerations might be necessary if interest rates remained unchanged. 

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Many families have had to temporarily go without tomatoes, a crucial ingredient in staple Indian cuisine, because of the price increase brought on by severe rains affecting supplies. Farmers, though, are overjoyed.

In the current season, Ishwar Gaykar and his wife Sonali, who farm tomatoes on 12 acres (4.9 hectares) of land near Junnar in Maharashtra, have achieved a profit of around 24 million rupees, up from 1.5 million last year at this time.

The pair has become one of the region’s largest suppliers of tomatoes thanks to their reliance on a staff of 60 to 70 people, who work in the fields every day. Ishwar has become a local star, and reporters are clamoring to speak with him.

Ishwar lost roughly 2 million rupees (2021 USD) during the same season because tomato prices were low. “About one and a half months ago, tomatoes were fetching barely 2.5 rupees a kilogramme,” he stated. “Supply is low but demand is still high.”

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So far, the pair has supplied around 350 tonnes, and if the weather holds, they anticipate selling an additional 150 tonnes in the near future. The present crop is somewhere from 120 to 140 days old, making it the third harvest of the year.

Heavy monsoon rains and floods in some locations have disrupted transportation, causing shortages. This has led to higher prices for other veggies, and inflation is expected to rise as a result. The issue has gone viral, and consumers are blaming both the rain god and the authorities for the current drought.

The government has begun deploying mobile vans to offer tomatoes at subsidised prices in several different areas. It’s having an effect, but consumers in the country of 1.4 billion are still paying extraordinarily expensive costs. The price of tomatoes typically rises in the wet summer months of July and August, but this year’s increase has been atypical.

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