Roma tomatoes: the sauce and salsa tomato, sized medium to jumbo

A roma is the tomato that goes into the pot, the molcajete and the pico bowl: firm, oblong and thick-walled, with little gel, so it dices clean and cooks down without turning to water. King Quality Produce carries romas June through August, sized Medium, Large, Extra-Large and Jumbo in 25 lb boxes. Here is how to buy and hold them, and why the 2025 end of the tomato suspension agreement hits this tomato first.

What a roma is and the sizes KQP carries

Roma is the plum tomato, an egg-shaped paste type with dense flesh and fewer seed cavities than a round slicer. UC Davis lists roma with round, globe and flattened globe as the shape types a tomato is judged against, under the same quality rules of shape, uniform color, small smooth scars and firm flesh². USDA's market reporting tracks romas as plum-type tomatoes⁷.

Cooks call romas dry, but USDA's Foundation Foods sample of raw roma ran 94.7 g water per 100 g¹; what you feel on the board is thick walls, less gel and a skin that holds through a rough dice. KQP sizes romas Medium, Large, Extra-Large and Jumbo, every size in a 25 lb box.

Where and when it grows

KQP's roma program runs June through August, with fruit from our growers in Mexico, the American Southwest and California, whose harvests overlap in summer.

USDA's Economic Research Service reports that imports supplied 68.9 percent of U.S. fresh tomato availability in 2025 and that Mexico accounts for about 90 percent of those imports⁷. Roughly 65 percent of Mexican production is grown under protected agriculture, Mexico exports 65 to 70 percent of its fresh tomato output, and more than 90 percent of that goes to the United States⁸. That is why roma prices react to trade news quickly.

How to buy romas: sizes, packs and receiving

Choose size by the cut. Medium and Large romas dice into even pieces for pico and salsa fresca with little waste; Extra-Large and Jumbo give long halves for roasting and the fastest throughput for sauce. All four sizes come in 25 lb boxes.

Romas are graded under the same USDA standards as slicers: U.S. No. 1, U.S. Combination (at least 60 percent No. 1), U.S. No. 2 and U.S. No. 3, on shape, smoothness, cleanness and freedom from decay, freezing injury and sunscald³. Color is classed Green, Breakers, Turning, Pink, Light Red and Red, with Red meaning more than 90 percent of the surface is red and Light Red 60 to 90 percent³. Buy Red for sauce and Light Red for a dice that has to hold through a lunch rush.

At the dock, check for soft shoulders from a warm trailer, cracks at the stem end, and gray or black mold at the scar. USDA's shipping-point tolerance for U.S. No. 1 is 10 percent off-grade, including no more than 5 percent very serious damage and 1 percent soft or decayed³.

• Size matches the invoice
• Color stage matches the order
• Firm from shoulder to tip
• Dry, clean stem scars, no mold
• Box feels cool, not cold

Storage and shelf life

The same chilling rules as every tomato apply. UC Davis recommends 55 to 60°F for mature-green fruit, 50 to 55°F for Light Red fruit, and 44 to 50°F only for firm-ripe fruit for 3 to 5 days, at 90 to 95 percent relative humidity². Below 50°F for more than two weeks, or at 41°F for 6 to 8 days, chilling injury accumulates and shows as blotchy color, failure to ripen, softening and decay².

Expect 8 to 10 days of shelf life once fruit is firm-ripe and held in range, and up to 14 days at 55°F for mature-green fruit². To ripen Pink or Light Red romas for sauce, hold them at 65 to 70°F, ideally 68°F; above 77°F the color goes yellow and the flesh softens². Ripening tomatoes give off ethylene, so keep them away from lettuce and cucumbers², on the prep rack rather than in the walk-in.

Nutrition by the numbers

USDA FoodData Central has a Foundation Foods entry for raw roma tomatoes, published in 2021. Per 100 g it reports 22 calories (19 by the specific Atwater factors), 94.7 g water, 0.70 g protein, 0.43 g fat, 3.84 g carbohydrate, 0.97 g fiber, 193 mg potassium, 17.8 mg vitamin C, 10 µg folate, 10 mg calcium, 8 mg magnesium, no sodium and 2,860 µg lycopene¹.

Against FDA's Daily Values of 90 mg for vitamin C and 4,700 mg for potassium⁴, 100 g of raw roma covers about 20 percent of a day's vitamin C and 4 percent of its potassium. Romas are also a solid source of lycopene, the red carotenoid, at 2.86 mg per 100 g¹. Those are measurements, not health promises.

The 2025 end of the tomato suspension agreement, and what it did to roma prices

On July 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced it had withdrawn from the 2019 Suspension Agreement on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico, ending minimum prices that had governed Mexican tomatoes since 1996, and issued an antidumping duty order with a 17.09 percent duty on most Mexican tomato imports⁵. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the duties measure how far Mexican tomatoes had been sold below fair value⁵.

Reuters reported on July 15, 2025, that Mexican tomato exports to the United States are worth about $3 billion a year and that Mexican fresh tomatoes make up about two-thirds of the tomatoes eaten in the country; Mexico's economy and agriculture ministries called the decision unfair⁶. Mexican tomatoes still enter duty-free under USMCA, but most fresh shipments now carry the antidumping duty on top, and Mexico announced updated minimum export prices in September 2025⁸.

The effect on romas showed up with a lag. USDA ERS reports grower prices fell 40 to 45 percent in 2025 versus 2024, then rose sharply in early 2026, with January and February prices up 95 and 147 percent year over year; shipping-point prices for plum-type tomatoes were up more than 100 percent in the first quarter of 2026, imports from Mexico ran about 15 percent below a year earlier from August 2025 through February 2026, and Florida freezes in late January and early February 2026 cut domestic shipments⁷. A June 2026 USDA Foreign Agricultural Service forecast reported by Fresh Fruit Portal has Mexican tomato production falling 9 percent in 2026 to 2.6 million metric tons, exports down 7 percent to 1.8 million tons and planted area down 11 percent to about 93,900 acres, with the duty named as the main driver⁸.

For Los Angeles kitchens, the roma is where this lands first because so much of the year's supply is Mexican. In summer, KQP's Southwest and California romas carry no antidumping duty; the rest of the year, ask about origin when you ask about price.

In the kitchen: how Los Angeles uses romas

Taquerias and Mexican kitchens run romas through salsa roja, pico de gallo and salsa fresca all day; the firm flesh takes a dice without bleeding, and charred romas blended with chiles are the base of many table salsas. Italian kitchens roast halves with garlic and oil or cook romas down for a quick sauce; Armenian kitchens dice them into salads; pizzerias slice them thin because a roma round holds its shape in the oven. Markets sell them by the pound, in a single layer at room temperature.

Romas are a summer item at KQP, and counts, sizes and origin change weekly. Call the office at (213) 627-7181 or email office@kingqualityproduce.com for this week's availability and we will size the box to your cut.