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It's always interesting to see what happens when something is optimized for the "wrong" metric. No consumer would actually say they want worse tasting tomatoes

It's always interesting to see what happens when something is optimized for the "wrong" metric. No consumer would actually say they want worse tasting tomatoes, but consumers as a whole clearly made that choice by buying only cheap and firm tomatoes. Same with farmers, they didn't want bad tasting tomatoes, they just wanted to make a profit and knew that the market responded positively to tomatoes that were red, firm, ship well, and stayed "good" long enough for the retailers.

jrochkind1 11y ago
So one of the things going on there is that firmness and redness used to be signs of a good-tasting tomato -- because it was just the right amount of ripe, not under or over. Customers don't normally get to taste tomatoes before they buy them, they have to use firmness and color as a proxy. So they bred tomatoes that can be very firm and very red with almost no relationship to actual ripeness, and taste terrible. In that case, it's more of a trick than customers showing a preference for firmness or color over taste. But you're right, I think, that customers will generally choose cost over taste, or over almost anything else, in the aggregate over the long-term anyway.
- munificent 11y ago
  > So one of the things going on there is that firmness and redness used to be signs of a good-tasting tomato. Is it that or just that firmness and redness are correct signs of "will last until I get it home from the store and use it for dinner in a few days"?
  - jrochkind1 11y ago
    "last" how? Some would say grocery store tomatoes start out unfit for consumption.
- manachar 11y ago
  Another example is the yellow in cheddar cheese. Apparently the yellow-ish color was originally a mark of high-quality milk from grass-fed Jersey and Guernsey cow. Now they use annatto and other spices/dyes to add color to the cheese. Essentially, when the consumer doesn't have complete information they will have to make purchasing decisions based on proxy information. As you note, this can lead trickery from the person selling the product.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    That's really funny, considering how in my family, white cheddar was always the "realer", more high-quality kind, whereas we assumed yellow cheddar to be highly-processed and made of whatever.

jrochkind1 11y ago

So one of the things going on there is that firmness and redness used to be signs of a good-tasting tomato -- because it was just the right amount of ripe, not under or over. Customers don't normally get to taste tomatoes before they buy them, they have to use firmness and color as a proxy. So they bred tomatoes that can be very firm and very red with almost no relationship to actual ripeness, and taste terrible. In that case, it's more of a trick than customers showing a preference for firmness or color over taste. But you're right, I think, that customers will generally choose cost over taste, or over almost anything else, in the aggregate over the long-term anyway.

munificent 11y ago
> So one of the things going on there is that firmness and redness used to be signs of a good-tasting tomato. Is it that or just that firmness and redness are correct signs of "will last until I get it home from the store and use it for dinner in a few days"?
- jrochkind1 11y ago
  "last" how? Some would say grocery store tomatoes start out unfit for consumption.
manachar 11y ago
Another example is the yellow in cheddar cheese. Apparently the yellow-ish color was originally a mark of high-quality milk from grass-fed Jersey and Guernsey cow. Now they use annatto and other spices/dyes to add color to the cheese. Essentially, when the consumer doesn't have complete information they will have to make purchasing decisions based on proxy information. As you note, this can lead trickery from the person selling the product.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  That's really funny, considering how in my family, white cheddar was always the "realer", more high-quality kind, whereas we assumed yellow cheddar to be highly-processed and made of whatever.