BANGKOK – Villa Market, one of the capital city’s premium grocery store chains, has announced another first for the nation: the availability of the world’s first tomato priced at ฿10,000, or US$350.
The tomato in question is a rare hybrid tomates cerise that was created in a special Japanese laboratory in Osaka, where researchers cross-bred an Heirloom tomato with a Momotaro to achieve the perfect blend of texture and sweetness. The resulting hybrid, known only as TM-2354K1.1112, was then further cross-bred with an Italian San Marzano tomato to reduce its size to a perfect near-cherry size, a process which took almost nine years to develop.
The resulting tomato, which has been named the GaiaONE, is considered to be the world’s best tomato because it not only combines the best of all known tomato varietals, but is grown in very specific conditions.
“For the first part of its life, the GaiaONE is hydroponic,” explained Amy Melford, Villa’s PR manager. “It lives in pure mountain spring water and is exposed only to sunlight filtered for UVA and UVB light. Then the vines are transplanted to a special compost made exclusively from the feces of Kobe beef cows. This gives the GaiaONE its unique flavor, which has the highest rating on the unagi scale of any tomato ever.”
Such perfection doesn’t come without costs, however, and in addition to its production expenses, the GaiaONE has to be flown overnight from Osaka in special temperature and pressure-controlled packaging, resulting in the stiff 10,000 baht price tag for a single tomato. According to Amy, Villa plans to build a special display for the GaiaONE in the produce section.
“We’ve had some very special items before, such as the 720 baht/kilo USA white peaches, or the 560 baht/kilo Australian butter lettuce, but this is really a new level for us,” she explained. Also, the GaiaONE has to be handled with special foam-latex tongs, so it’s best to separate them from our ordinary, 400 baht/kilo hydroponic Dutch tomatoes.”
Although the GaiaONE won’t be in stores until September 30th, excitement has already begun to build among Villa customers.
“I absolutely must have them for my avocado tarragon salsa,” said Bridgette Lancaster-Merrill, a British expatriate whose husband works at Citibank, and who has pre-ordered a dozen GaiaONE tomatoes. “They’ll go perfectly with my 18,000 baht/kilo Kopi Luwak coffee, and 375,000 baht/kilo white truffles.”
Her sentiments were echoed by S. Mortimer Haumann, a fund manager who has pre-ordered several kilos of GaiaONEs for what he expects to be the “world’s greatest Bloody Mary.”
“It’s not about the money,” he said. “It’s about others not having the money. That’s what makes expat life truly enjoyable.”
