The purple tomato will be one of the most visible products of genetic modification, still a touchy subject for many

Purple tomatoes could be in U.S. stores in
2023. (Photo by JIC Photography, flickr)

A purple tomato? Is that a thing? “For the last 14 years, Cathie Martin and Eugenio Butelli from the John Innes Centre in Norfolk, England, and their team have been working on developing the purple tomato,” writes Yan Yue, a Ph.D. candidate at the Quadram Institute, for The Conversation, a platform for journalistic writing by academics. “Their aim was to engineer a tomato that contained higher levels of anthocyanins, which can be used alongside unmodified tomatoes to study the benefits of anthocyanins. The team chose to modify a tomato because the fruits are delicious and widely consumed.”

The U.S. created the "Flavr Savr" tomato in 1994, which was the first genetically modified food. GM technology moved into corn, cotton and even pink pineapple. GM foods have battled a bad reputation with the public, but science bears out the benefits for plants, animals and people, Yue writes: “Many breeds of genetically modified foods have made them more resistant to disease. It’s also possible to modify foods to make them more nutritious. Take, for example, golden rice. This grain was engineered to have higher levels of vitamin A, in order to tackle deficiencies of this nutrient in impoverished countries.”

As the purple tomato was developed, the benefits of anthocyanins became evident. “Higher levels of anthocyanins in purple tomatoes actually work to double their shelf life compared to red tomatoes,” Yue writes. “Another benefit of high levels of anthocyanins is that they attract pollinators and animals to disperse seeds, which increases reproductive success of the plants and their yield. Anthocyanins also protect plants from UV damage and protect them from pathogens, which maximizes their survival.” The list of benefits goes on.

Despite the positives, GM foods still have to overcome the "continued ignorance of the general public alongside the reluctance of government policymakers,” Yue writes. "This is why the regulatory approval of purple tomatoes in the U.S. this September is so exciting. . . . It’s expected that purple tomatoes will be available for sale in the U.S. as soon as 2023."