TGIFood

How shopping for tomatoes humbled me

Ray’s cream of tomato soup, served with a toasted cheese sandwich. (Photo: Ray Mahlaka)

7 Feb 2025

I was stumped by the pricing unit of tomatoes when determining value for money. For a confessed math whizz, I couldn’t differentiate between grams and kilograms. How embarrassing!

Can I please have a moment to toot my own horn? I’ve never struggled with mathematics. I think I’m one of the few journalists who enjoys numbers, probing them, and using them to tell a story. Most journalists struggle with numbers and have maths anxiety. Not me and my hubris.

However, I had a long overdue serving of humble pie this week. I love shopping online for groceries and am a frequent user of the famous 60-minute delivery service, which is run by the country’s leading retailer.

On my grocery list, among many items, were tomatoes. And here is where my humbling maths moment comes in. The options online for tomatoes were the following: a 500g bag of baby tomatoes for R29,99, a 1kg bag of Roma tomatoes also for R29,99, or a 2kg bag of Roma tomatoes for a more costly R49,99.

For some odd reason, I couldn’t ascertain which option offered value for money and volume. Do I go for baby tomatoes, which because of their small size I could control the exact number of tomatoes needed in a recipe to eliminate waste? So, in other words, the 500g bag of baby tomatoes could last a long time. Or do I shell out more money, R20 in this case, to buy a 2kg bag of Roma tomatoes?

This equation might seem simple to solve, but it isn’t.

The difficulty here is that I am not measuring units of the same size — grams vs kilograms. Some mathematics and conversions are needed here. To determine which option offered the best value for money, I would have to calculate the price per kilogram for each option. Such a conversion is difficult and would require some hefty mathematical skills beyond my comprehension and pay grade. I was humbled. Instinctively, I went with the 2kg bag of Roma tomatoes option when I checked out my grocery cart on the 60-minute delivery service.

Post online shopping, I enlisted help from an artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, and asked which of the above tomato options offered value for money. Within seconds, it spat out calculations and conversions of the price per kilogram for each tomato option:

500g bag of baby tomatoes for R29,99
- Convert 500g to kg: 500g = 0.5kg
- Price per kg: R29,99/0.5kg = R59,98/kg

1kg bag of Roma tomatoes for R29,99
- Price per kg: R29,99/1kg = R29,99/kg

2kg bag of Roma tomatoes for R49,99
- Price per kg: R49,99/2kg = R24,995/kg

So, based on the above conversion and calculations from ChatGPT, a 2kg bag of Roma tomatoes offers the best value for money.

Many consumers have faced the same grams vs kilograms conundrum. It even inspired the Competition Commission, South Africa’s competition watchdog, to investigate the pricing of fresh produce, including apples, oranges and soft citrus, bananas, pears, table grapes, potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, and spinach.

The commission’s two-year investigation found that the pricing of fresh produce by leading grocery retailers, including Woolworths, Pick n Pay, and Shoprite Checkers, is not transparent and makes it difficult for consumers to find the best value.

The commission found that these retailers primarily price fresh produce on a per-unit basis, and these units are not standardised across supermarkets, making it difficult for consumers to compare prices.

“For instance, units might include 1kg, 1.5kg, 2kg, 3kg, 7kg, or pockets,” states the commission’s report released in January.

“The prices of retailers mostly do not allow a like-for-like comparison, given the different unit sizes or measurements. Concretely put, it is unreasonable and impractical to expect a consumer to convert the per kilogram price where one retailer opts to sell its potatoes in unit sizes of, for example, 1.5kg, 3.5kg, or 7kg, while another opts to sell their potatoes in 5kg or 10kg unit sizes. As such, a true comparison of which retailer is cheaper — from a consumer’s perspective – is impractical and not consumer friendly,” the report goes on.

The commission recommended that retailers adopt dual pricing — per unit and per kilogram or gram — to enhance transparency. Retailers have about two years to reform their pricing architecture.

I must admit that I feel somewhat rescued by the commission’s findings because my mathematics skills, after all, are not woefully inadequate. If all else fails, blame the retailers.

The 2kg bag of Roma tomatoes I bought brings up another challenge. I live alone and the bag of tomatoes is excessive for someone who usually makes dinners for one. So, expect a lot of tomato-based recipes from me so that the tomatoes I bought don’t go to waste.

Please write to me directly at [email protected] or my editor Tony Jackman at [email protected] to suggest some tomato-laden recipes. I need your help as I am short on recipe ideas.

To kick off the tomato recipe series, I made cream of tomato soup. Bear with me, please. I know that it is still summer in South Africa, and the soup season (usually in winter) has not officially begun. However, tomato soup is all-season friendly. It’s easy to make and comforting. It has a rich flavour profile, especially when served with a grilled cheese sarmie. Try my easy recipe below. Bon appétit!

Ray’s tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich

Ray’s cream of tomato soup, served with a toasted cheese sandwich. (Photo: Ray Mahlaka)

Ingredients

For the tomato soup:

4 large tomatoes

1 can of whole peeled tomatoes

2 onions, chopped

1 cup water

1 Tbsp tomato paste

Any vegetable stock (I used a vegetable stock pot by Knorr)

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp crushed garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp dried basil

1 Tbsp dried oregano

1 cup fresh cream

For the cheese toast sandwich:

2 slices of rye bread

2 Tbsp butter, softened

1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Method

Prepare the tomato soup:

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Arrange the cut tomatoes and onion on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Grill for 20 minutes or until browned.

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the grilled tomatoes and onion, garlic, canned whole peeled tomatoes, and tomato paste. Cook for five minutes, stirring.

Add the vegetable stock pot, cup of water, sugar, dried basil, and dried oregano. Let it simmer for 20-25 minutes. Add a cup of fresh cream. Cook for another five minutes and then reduce the heat.

Blend the soup until smooth using an immersion blender. Alternatively, you can blend the soup in batches using a regular blender.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Keep the soup warm on low heat.

Prepare the toasted cheese sandwich:

Butter both sides of each slice of bread. Yes, all four sides.

Place the bread in a non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat. Let it lightly toast just for 1 minute.

Turn one slice of bread, then pile the cheese on top. Place the other slice of bread on top with the hot toasted side in contact with the cheese.

Press down lightly and cook for 3 minutes until the underside is golden brown. Turn the sandwich and cook the other side for another 3 minutes until golden brown and crisp.

Serve each bowl of tomato soup with a slice of toasted cheese sandwich. DM

Categories:

TGIFood

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

TGIFood