Every day, thousands of workers from Central and Eastern Europe harvest tomatoes under the artificial heat of Dutch greenhouses. Their clothes stained green and yellow with tomato juice, some have just arrived in this new country for the first time, following long bus journeys and promises of good wages and proper housing made by employment agencies that speak their languages. Many come from rural agricultural backgrounds or from peripheral cities where industries have collapsed and stable, well-paying jobs are scarce.

Once picked, the tomatoes are sorted and packaged by other migrant workers in large distribution centers, destined for supermarket shelves across Europe. A kilo of these tomatoes often costs less than a euro. Supermarkets buy them from growers for even less. Before they reach you, the consumer, for use in salads, pasta sauces, or on sandwiches, they are transported by truck drivers or delivery workers employed by companies like Picnic and Albert Heijn.

The farmer growing these ‘famous’ Dutch tomatoes in a highly technological greenhouse may come from a long line of growers. Yet in recent decades, they have increasingly lost the ability to hire workers directly and rely instead on a network of labour contractors and employment agencies. The tomato picker, the packager, and the delivery driver are all paid minimum wage, often through zero-hour contracts that offer no security and little protection.

This tomato, then, is more than a piece of produce. It encapsulates a complex, globalized web of social and material relations. It is a symbol of the present-day food system, one marked by deep disconnections: between labourers and farmers, between consumers and producers, and between humans and the environment. But if we work to heal these disconnections, the tomato can also become a symbol of transformation: toward a fairer, more resilient, and more just food system.