RIPE FOR SUCCESS

If you grew up in the second half of the 20th century, you almost certainly have a preconceived notion of what a tomato is. Round, red, a little smaller than a baseball, and often found impeccably stacked in the produce aisle of your local supermarket. These tomatoes are a bit bland, subtly fragrant, and firm enough to stand up to a vigorous salad tossing. For those looking for a sweeter taste, there is the cherry tomato—small, darker in color, and perfect for shish kebabs. Throw in the plum tomato, and the story basically ended there.

But now we know—thanks to the proliferation of farmers markets and stores like Whole Foods—that these symmetrical, standardized varieties are the very distant cousins of a fruit that came in a literal rainbow of colors and a delectable array of flavors. For the founders of Tomato Bliss, bringing these glorious heirloom tomatoes—with all their robustness and nutrients—to today’s consumers is a mission.

“Our belief is that better flavor comes from attention to seed diversity and soil health, and growing in a different way,” explains Tomato Bliss CEO Monique Hypes, a Lake Forest resident by way of Chicago (and a childhood in Mexico City, London, and Minnesota). “You can taste the difference.” Not only that, she says, heirloom tomatoes are far more nutrient-rich, and the way they’re cultivated is better for the environment. “Better flavor, better health, better for the planet.” It’s a powerful argument—the genesis of which came from a series of small and sequential epiphanies.

The roots of this female-founded and female-owned company stretch back to the early 2000s, when Hypes’ business partner, Marie Krane, uncovered a market potential for better-tasting and better-for-you tomatoes. A former community activist, Krane had been bartering heirloom seeds in Chicago’s Hyde Park. It was clear to her that these mysterious, misshapen tomatoes had a powerful allure. So, Krane and her husband took a leap of faith and purchased a small farm in southwest Michigan in 2012, where they began to slowly transform the hard-packed, formerly commercial earth into a vibrant, biodiverse ecosystem for their heirloom plants.

Because these more delicate varieties are not as transportable or shelf-stable as their homogenized brethren (stores today sell about 25 out of 10,000 tomato seed varieties), Krane began roasting and converting them to soups so they could be enjoyed year-round. A big break came when she was granted a coveted spot in Chicago’s Green City Market. The soups were a hit (in fact, the Masala Heirloom Tomato Soup was voted “best soup” by Prevention magazine in 2022), but to scale up Krane needed a partner. Enter Hypes.

“My true north is building and scaling mission-led businesses,” says Hypes, who’s run several businesses, often with a health and wellness angle. As fortune would have it, Hypes had sunset a bone broth soup company at the onset of COVID, and she was spending more time in the family’s garden at their new home in Lake Forest. She was there one day, contemplating what to do next, when her phone rang. It was a friend in venture capital who knew about Krane, and she thought that Hypes could help take Tomato Bliss to the next level. It seemed like it was meant to be. “I connected with Marie and the stars just aligned,” Hypes recalls.

The company had a strong direct-to-consumer soup business on Amazon and a great partnership with Dom’s Kitchen & Market in Chicago, but Hypes made the strategic decision to focus on food service. Tomato Bliss partnered with Gordon Food Service, and they recently began distributing their soups to chefs, hospitals, and beyond. In fact, the University of Notre Dame serves Tomato Bliss to students seven days a week. These partnerships, along with their 60,000-square-foot processing facility, create the opportunity to bring other farmers into the fold. That’s a critical part of their mission because Tomato Bliss is not just about reconnecting people to the flavor of heirloom tomatoes. It’s about changing agricultural practices, one biodiverse acre at a time.

“Core to our mission is supporting local, like-minded farmers,” says Hypes. “We guarantee the purchase of surplus heirloom tomatoes. Basically upcycling anything that would have gone to waste. In doing so we are encouraging farmers to grow these specialty crops. Sell as many as you can at a premium price, and we will buy the rest. That’s when we fire roast them.”

This formula works for commercial farmers as well. “The tomatoes fetch a better price, and farmers have seen the impact that dedicating portions of their land to biodiversity can have on their operation. Our goal is to go beyond organic and heal the soil.”

The template for that biodiversity has been set at the Lotus Flower Farm (home to Tomato Bliss) located in Galien, Michigan, in the state’s “fruit belt.” In contrast to monoculture agriculture, more than 170 types of tomatoes exist among walnut and pawpaw trees, shrubs, herbs, different species of flowers, and many other vegetables. The farm has a no-till policy, which means the earth is not turned over each growing season, leading to the preservation of organic matter, less soil erosion, and carbon sequestration. No herbicides or pesticides are used, and no one walks on the soil except to use small paths to keep it from compacting. Water conservation is a must, as are fair wages for the farm’s workers—all essential when it comes to being certified as a regenerative farm.

“How do we save heirloom tomatoes from extinction?” Hypes asks. “It’s by scaling this thing. I want to bring specialty tomatoes to every table.”

Which brings everything back to the soups. There are many pieces to the puzzle: seeds; soil; sun; processing; sales; and distribution. But the real rocket fuel for Tomato Bliss is flavor. By turning consumers on to what a real tomato tastes like, all the other steps come more easily. Which leads to the natural question— what does an heirloom tomato taste like?

When asked this question, Hypes thinks for a moment before answering, “Summer.”

It’s a poignant response. Not just because it’s a great description of an heirloom tomato’s flavor, but because a new growing season is just around the corner. And new seasons mean new opportunities for change—and new reasons for hope.

Hypes recognizes it’s not a revolution that is going to take place overnight. “I believe in progress over perfection. We make choices to do better one step at a time. Tomato Bliss is small but mighty, and we aim to make a real difference,” Hypes reflects. “I wake up every day and ask, ‘How can I drive lasting impact?’”

For more information, visit tomatobliss.com.