The Creole Tomato, the Vidalia Onion, & the Power of Product Protection
How certification marks, federal marketing orders, and intellectual property protections helped transform the Vidalia onion into a protected regional brand—and what those same tools might mean for Louisiana’s iconic Creole tomato.
Introduction: A Louisiana Staple with a Devoted Following
Whether sliced and placed atop a burger fresh off the grill or chopped and mixed with vinaigrette as part of a vibrant tossed salad, fresh tomatoes are a staple as cookout season shifts into high gear.
Louisiana produces its fair share of “field grown” tomatoes each year, turning out some 806,000 lugs (standard 20-pound boxes) and generating between $13 million and $15 million in annual sales according to data compiled by the LSU AgCenter.
Even so, the state significantly trails Southern neighbors like Florida, Georgia and Tennessee, and larger states like California nationally, when it comes to production volume, as Louisiana’s extra humidity and wet summers, along with its shorter frost window, shorten the prime harvest conditions for growing traditional tomatoes en masse.
Louisiana’s homegrown tomato industry, therefore, relies more significantly than its neighbors on direct-to-consumer points of sale, such as roadside stands, farmer’s markets and small farms where local growers sell tomatoes cultivated to adapt and thrive in Louisiana’s unique environment.
These locally sourced tomatoes have developed loyal followings over the years – and none has developed a more devoted fan base than the Creole tomato.
Creoles are conspicuously marketed in May and June, the start of their comparatively short season (which typically ends by January or shortly thereafter depending on when the first freeze occurs) and are most often sold in white cardboard cartons adorned with the words “Louisiana Creole Tomatoes” in red lettering evocative of the hand-stenciled signs used to announce the produce on offer at the stalls and stands of Louisiana’s historic marketplaces of yesteryear.
They will again be celebrated in New Orleans on June 6 and 7 at the 40th annual Creole Tomato Festival hosted by the city’s French Market District.
Between 50,000 and 100,000 visitors will join the festivities, which begin with the “Ripe and Ready” second line parade and which offer festgoers the chance to sample dishes such as Creole tomato jambalaya, fried Creole tomato BLTs and Creole tomatoes stuffed with shrimp pasta – as well as a large supply of freshly picked tomatoes stacked into those white cardboard cartons for take-home purchase and consumption.
What Makes a Creole Tomato a Creole Tomato?
Loyal Creole tomato fans swear that these tomatoes are uniquely fuller, “beefier,” and tastier than any other variety, and they identify Creoles as having a brightly sweet and slightly acidic flavor that adds depth to its unique profile.
The Creole tomatoes grown at Matt Ranatza Farms in Belle Chasse, the featured farm vendor at this year’s Creole Tomato Festival, “tolerate heat and humidity” and produce “high yields of juicy fruit that resist cracking” and which “ripen[ ] into a meatier-than-average tomato with outstanding flavor” according to a marketing post at laughingbuddhanursery.com.
Despite a dedicated marketing campaign and an adoring fanbase, however, a lack of true regulation and an overall absence of any targeted product or quality certification processes has introduced inconsistency into the Creole tomato marketplace over time and has likely limited the true Creole tomato from reaching its full star – and market – potential.
The Origins of the Creole Tomato
The original Creole tomatoes were planted sometime in the 1930s and were grown exclusively in South Louisiana, south of Lake Pontchartrain, and, more specifically, in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes (including Belle Chasse), where the tomatoes could grow in the sandy, silty, clay-like alluvial soils deposited down the banks of the Mississippi River.
Some have also cited the combination of Louisiana’s hot, wet late-spring air and the chemical makeup of the water flowing down the Mississippi River itself as contributing to the overall composition of these tomatoes, which were typically vine-ripened (since they were not being transported long distances) and which usually grew knobby, as opposed to simply spherical, and which often displayed “green shoulders,” or green-colored streaks, as opposed to the more uniform shade of red typically associated with tomatoes typically found in standard grocery stores.
From Local Tradition to Lost Definition
By the 1950s and ‘60s, farmers in St. Bernard and Plaquemines were marketing the tomatoes coming from their farms as “Creole.”
The farmers were not using any one particular seed to grow all of the tomatoes coming out of the area, instead they each typically saved seeds from their crop yield and passed those down to future generations at their respective farms.
In 1969, an LSU researcher named Teme Hernandez released a tomato cultivar that he named “Creole,” and which was designed to withstand Louisiana’s weather conditions and resist “wilt.”
The tomatoes grown using this “Creole” cultivar were generally medium sized and featured a deeper red color than what had been historically grown in St. Bernard and Plaquemines.
The St. Bernard and Plaquemines farmers never fully adopted this new “Creole” cultivar, preferring instead to stick with their own familiar varieties that are believed by some to more closely resemble the “Celebrity” cultivar, a semi-determinate strain that is adapted for strong, vigorous vines.
LSU never archived the “Creole” cultivar due to this lack of overall adoption.
At the same time, the St. Bernard and Plaquemines farmers never cataloged or archived their seeds, either.
In the intervening years, no regulatory scheme or processes specifically governing the growing and cultivating of Creole tomatoes has ever emerged, and neither the state nor the Department of Agriculture has placed specific geographic limitations directing where a tomato must be grown, or when it may be harvested and packed, in order to be certified as an official Creole tomato.
Instead, any tomato grown anywhere in Louisiana may obtain a “Certified Creole” designation as part of the state’s “Certified Louisiana” program (see, e.g., La. R.S. 3:4721) so long as the grower submits a compliant application and at least 50% of the product is grown, produced, manufactured, processed or packed within Louisiana.
While Louisiana authorizes its state Department of Agriculture to police producers’ use of terms like “Cajun” and “Louisiana Creole” in connection with agricultural products and food sales, the terms are only vaguely tied to geography and require only “substantial connect[ion]” to the state without including specifications for growing conditions, harvesting, packaging, etc. (see, for example, La. R.S. 3:4702(B)).
Additionally, nursery and hardware locations all over the state sell “Creole tomato seeds” that can be planted and grown outside of the St. Bernard/Plaquemines area – or anywhere for that matter – adding to the confusion and potential market dilution.
A Question of Identity and Protection
So perhaps the true, original Creole tomato is lost to history, undone by inconsistent seed varieties and non-existent standards enforcement.
But did it have to be this way?
Or could the Creole tomato regain its true identity through more detailed product specifications and a system designed to protect its essential characteristics (and its brand quality) from substandard competition and inaccurate representation by interlopers?
The answers may lie within the intricacies of intellectual property laws, marketing regulations … and the Vidalia Onion Committee.
How the Vidalia Onion Built a Protected Brand
The Accidental Discovery of a Sweet Onion
Much like the original Creole tomato, the Vidalia onion’s unique flavor profile has been closely linked to its native habitat.
In what has often been described as a happy accident, the first Vidalia onions resulted from a Georgia farmer’s fortuitous planting of what turned out to be sweet – instead of hot – onion seed in a sandy patch of field in Southeastern Toombs County.
The resulting crop proved quite popular, prompting the farm to charge a premium for each bag and for word of these uniquely delicious onions to spread.
By the 1940s, the yellow Granex onion, a hybrid of the Bermuda and Grano onion strains developed at Texas A&M, had become the predominant onion variety grown in South Georgia, where it combined favorably with the low-sulfur soil composition and the mild-winter climate of this 20-county region to create a distinctively sweet and flavorful product.
Growing Pains and Market Confusion
By the 1970s and ‘80s, the onions from this South Georgia region had developed a much larger following, and growers were encountering quality control issues as bootleggers re-bagged out-of-state onions and mislabeled them as Vidalias in attempts to capitalize on the Vidalia name’s reputation and premium price point.
Additionally, growers began contending with market confusion issues as competing areas within the 20-county region disagreed over how the sweet onions should be identified.
Most notably, the Glennville area began promoting their onions as Glennville onions, including at an annual festival, and this led to additional confusion and division.
A Collective Solution
While the individual onion growers held natural motivations to distinguish their own farms’ onions from their competitors’ products, they also realized that they could all benefit from collectively protecting and marketing the general characteristics and overall quality of the onions uniquely produced in their region.
The growers understood that such a collaborative effort would ultimately strengthen their collective market strength by distinguishing their region’s onions from the rest of the world’s.
The Legal Framework Behind the Vidalia Success Story
The Vidalia Onion Act of 1986
The growers eventually settled on “Vidalia” as the onions’ unitary moniker (the town of Vidalia being conveniently located at the crossroads of the region’s major onion markets), then turned their attention to state and federal intellectual property and marketing laws to construct a regulatory framework designed to protect and promote the Vidalia’s unique qualities.
First came the 1986 Vidalia Onion Act, which granted the state trademark rights in the name “Vidalia” when used to identify yellow Granex onions grown in the identified 20-county region of South Georgia.
The Act further authorized the Georgia Department of Agriculture, through the Office of the Commissioner, to protect the Vidalia brand and assure that its standards were maintained by making it illegal to, among other things, “package, label, identify or classify any onions for sale inside or outside [Georgia] as Vidalia onions or to use the term ‘Vidalia’ in connection with the labeling, packing, classifying or identifying of onions for sale inside or outside [Georgia] unless such onions are of the Vidalia onion variety and were grown in the Vidalia onion production area.” (§ 2-14-134(b), Vidalia Onion Act of 1986).
State Oversight and Quality Standards
The Act also vested the Department of Agriculture with additional responsibilities, such as determining and announcing the annual shipping date “for the Vidalia onion marketing season” (§ 2-14-136); and establishing tolerances/variances in the applicable standards for onion grades (§ 2-14-137), while also authorizing the Ag Commissioner to “impose and collect a royalty or license fee for the use of” the Vidalia trademark, with the funds from such royalties and licenses being “used to promote Vidalia onions and to pay costs associated with monitoring the use of” the Vidalia trademark. (§ 2-14-132.1).
Federal Marketing Order No. 955 and the Vidalia Onion Committee
Georgia went on to adopt additional regulations that further address the production, packaging, processing, holding, storing, distribution and sales of Vidalia onions and in 1989 obtained Federal Marketing Order No. 955, which codifies the rules for producing and handling Vidalia onions in the Code of Federal Regulations (see 7 C.F.R. Part 955).
FMO No. 955 also established the Vidalia Onion Committee, a regulatory body overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that is responsible for administering FMO No. 955 and for promoting the marketing, research, development and production of Vidalia onions.
With their binding, industry-wide effect, federal marketing orders can be key tools for stabilizing market conditions and ensuring consistent product quality, which in turn helps the producers of the products subject to the orders sell their products to the best possible market at the best possible price.
Certification Marks and Consumer Trust
What Is a Certification Mark?
Finally, the Georgia Department of Agriculture obtained a federal certification mark to the word “Vidalia” in 1992, designating the department as the “certifier” of onions marketed or sold by others under the Vidalia moniker. (See U.S. Reg. 1709019).
Per the registration, the Vidalia mark “is intended to be used by persons authorized by [the Georgia Department of Agriculture as the] certifier” after the certifier has in fact certified “that the goods in connection with which [the mark] is used are yellow Granex type onions and are grown by authorized growers within the Vidalia onion production area in Georgia as defined in the Georgia Vidalia onion act of 1986.”
Certification marks differ from traditional trademarks in that the product’s maker is not itself the owner/holder of the certification mark.
Instead, a suitable entity with the ability to observe and enforce relevant quality standards and to assure that the product possesses all required characteristics owns/holds the mark and is responsible for assuring that only those products properly adhering to all required standards are permitted to sell their products as having been certified under the mark.
State agencies are often the most suitable to act as the “certifiers” holding the certification mark; however, it is the producers of the product who are responsible for developing the standards and characteristics of the products that will be subject to the mark.
Protecting Consumers Through Consistency
While slightly different from traditional trademarks, certification marks are, at bottom, consistent with the core principle of trademark: protecting the consumer.
The collective mark permits the consumer to assure him/herself that the purchased product will possess a certain quality or characteristic associated with the certification.
A zealously enforced certification mark can result in consistent products of a specific quality that can increase sales and sale prices from a confident customer base.
Could Louisiana Follow the Vidalia Model?
The Results of a Strong Regulatory Framework
The Vidalia onion regulatory scheme, including its use of a registered certification mark and Federal Marketing Order No. 955, have not only increased product consistency and quality, but the increased resources from royalties and licenses have enabled the Vidalia onion to reach even larger markets.
Advancements such as controlled atmosphere storage, brought on in part by increased sales success, have increased growers’ ability to preserve their product for longer periods and to ship the product to a national customer base.
Unquestionably, this more focused regulatory approach directed at the unique characteristics that form the Vidalia onion’s identity have yielded tangible results.
A Future for the Original Creole Tomato
The fields of St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes will never be as large as the 20-county “Vidalia onion production area” and perhaps identifying the original Creole tomato seed that was first plunged into the alluvial soil of the river delta in the 1930s will remain the stuff of mystery.
But Creole tomato farmers in St. Bernard and Plaquemines know enough about what makes a true Creole tomato that the industry and the state could construct a directed and more specifically protective regulatory scheme with protections as robust as the original Creole tomato itself.
So there’s still hope that the original Creole tomato may rise and flourish.
And if there’s one thing Louisianans love, it’s an original.
