The World’s First Purple Tomato
February 27th, 2024
We’ve had purple- and dark-blue-skinned tomatoes for years now, but this month marks the arrival of the world’s first tomato that’s a true, dark purple throughout.

The Purple Tomato is purple throughout, not just at the skin level.
Credit: Norfolk Healthy Produce
For now at least, it’s called simply The Purple Tomato, and it’s a bioengineered cherry-type tomato that gets its purple coloring from the genes of a purple snapdragon.
That’s what makes this variety particularly ground-breaking – it’s the first time a genetically modified food crop is being marketed directly to consumers. Up to now, so-called GMO crops have been grown by commercial producers.
Norfolk Healthy Produce, the California start-up that’s the sole source of The Purple Tomato, began selling seeds to home gardeners earlier this month. They’re priced at $20 for a pack of 10 and available only through Norfolk’s website.
What remains to be seen is how well the idea goes over since a large chunk of the American product is leery about bioengineered/GMO foods.
Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has found no ill effects from eating bioengineered foods, slightly more than half of Americans have GMO health concerns, according to a 2020 Pew Research survey.
British biochemist Cathie Martin started work on The Purple Tomato 20 years ago by identifying a gene that gave a snapdragon its purple flowers. She then used a bacteria to insert the genetics into tomato plants.
The effort got a green light last year from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.