California Vs Florida: Which State Produces The Most Tomatoes?

Tomatoes claim a colorful, ever-present chunk of space in America's grocery venues, regardless of the season. In one form or another, availability is simply expected. That begs the question: Where do all these tomatoes come from? Our southern neighbor, Mexico, does contribute a fair share of tomatoes to meet marketplace demand, contributing about 91% of fresh tomato imports in 2023, according to USDA trade numbers (via The Packer). But it's really the homegrown U.S. producers and farmers that keep us consistently well-stocked with fresh "maters," canned sauces, pastes, ketchups, tomato juices, and much more. 

Roughly 10 states collectively produce the lion's share of those tomatoes, but two of them firmly take the top spots. California farmers by far supply the most tomatoes overall, and Florida growers follow with a distant second-place contribution. We're talking a whole of tomatoes. According to 2023 statistics provided by Statista, California produced roughly 263.743 million CWT of tomatoes, while Florida rolled out 8.970 million CWT during the same time period. To put that in perspective, it helps to understand how CWT works as a unit of measurement. 

The term "CWT" refers to centum weight, also known as hundredweight. It's primarily an industry term used to define quantity in commercial commodity purchases. For the average U.S. food consumer's perception, a CWT hundredweight equals 100 pounds. Some quick brain-math tells you that those California tomatoes in 2023 numbered well over 26 billion pounds. However, there are still a few things to consider when comparing annual tomato production levels in California versus Florida.

Two major things make a difference when comparing the annual tomato production output from California versus Florida. The first consideration is whether external circumstances cause crop damage or shortage in any given year, such as California's struggles with persistent drought. Likewise, hurricanes in Florida can have devastating effects on both tomato and citrus crops, changing the equation for overall fresh tomato availability. The other big influencer for output statistics is whether the state is growing types of tomatoes bound for the "fresh" or the "processed" markets. California leads by such a huge margin overall because the state heavily contributes tomato varieties grown for processed tomato-based products, by some estimates equaling about 95% of total U.S. output for this segment. 

Florida, on the other hand, grows most of its tomato crops for fresh market consumption, leading to higher fresh tomato production than California in some years. The typical American consumes considerable amounts of both, so you're likely getting tomato's health-enhancing lycopene, beta carotene, vitamin C, and hydration (believe it or not, tomatoes beat out watermelon as the most water-dense summer fruit) from both ends of the country. Indiana is another state with high contributions to America's commercial tomato industry, typically coming in third behind California and Florida with its production of both fresh market tomatoes and those grown for processing. Others states in the top 10 include South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, and Virginia. Here are 20 tasty tomato recipes to try these nutritious fruits in.