Anyone who grows their own or buys them from a local farmer's market, knows just how great home grown tomatoes taste. Why then do store bought tomatoes, which look all red and inviting taste bland?

https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/why-modern-tomato-tastes-cardboard.html

"We know that modern tomatoes are picked green and bred for pest-resistance, shipping and shelf life – and that the agriculture industry creates produce designed for profit not flavor. Are these the factors to blame for the tomato’s blasé demeanor? Even when allowed to ripen on the vine and shipped with great care, modern tomatoes are still insipid. Researchers have been looking into this tomato matter, and have recently uncovered a genetic cause for the fruit’s tedium.

The mischievous culprit is a gene mutation discovered accidentally around 70 years ago, and quickly latched onto by tomato breeders; in fact, now the mutation has been deliberately bred into nearly all modern tomatoes. Why? It makes them a uniform and seductive deep scarlet red when ripe.

Unfortunately for tomato-lovers, as reported in a paper published in the journal, Science, the red-making mutation deactivates an important gene responsible for producing the sugar and aromas that are essential for a fragrant and flavorful tomato. When researchers “turned on” the deactivated gene, the fruit had 20 percent more sugar and 20 to 30 percent more carotenoids when ripe – yet its non-uniform color and greenish pallor suggest that mainstream breeders will not be following suit. So we’re stuck with beautiful tomatoes that taste like a mere hint of their former selves."

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Another reason to grow your own vegetables.