The United States is one of the world’s top producers of fresh tomatoes. However, the industry supply chain is not well understood with little attention in the literature. To attend to this literature gap and to better inform business decisions and policy making, it is crucial to understand the industry structure on a deeper level. Applying a supply chain mapping approach, this study presents a complete picture of the U.S. fresh tomato supply chain with valuable insights into the fresh produce industry and lays the groundwork for future research on solving supply chain issues.

Economic risk is the possibility of adversity or loss and refers to “uncertainty that matters.” In agriculture, risks include production, financial, human resource, marketing, and legal and/or regulatory risk. Risk management involves choosing among available alternatives to reduce the effects of risk.