New York —
Mike Armata has been staring at lackluster tomatoes for a month now.
They’re fine to eat, they just don’t look as great as they normally do. His bigger problem is that they’re very expensive. But in this market, he has to take what he can get.
“There’s shortages everywhere. It’s a big expense for us to put up front on a gamble that people will in fact buy these products at these prices. It’s scary,” said Armata, who’s a produce buyer for his family-run company, E. Armata, which sells tomatoes to hundreds of