GE Purple Tomato Seeds Now Available to Home Gardeners in the US

Norfolk Healthy Produce announced the online seed sales of their first product, the genetically engineered high-antioxidant purple tomato in the United States. Seeds will be available to home gardeners only in the U.S. where the biotechnology regulatory process has been completed with U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency.

The new tomato variety contains purple antioxidants called anthocyanins also found in blueberries, blackberries, and eggplants. Norfolk's tomatoes are the only varieties that have purple antioxidants in the flesh and the skin, thanks to biotechnology which allowed the combination of tomatoes with two genes from the edible flower snapdragon.

The first variety is an indeterminate cherry tomato and can be grown with the same gardening methods used for other indeterminate varieties. A packet of 10 high-quality purple tomato gardener seeds costs US$20.

For more details, read the press release from Norfolk Healthy Produce.