The 2023 soup is sold out, 2024 to come.

AJTC stands for the Authentic Jersey Tomato Company (AJTC). When I started my seed work, I established the Authentic Jersey Tomato Seed Collection. It’s a list of Jersey bred tomatoes. I incorporated as AJTC as the next logical step.

The 3Rs of Iconic Jeresy Tomato history are;

Respect it

Revive it

Reinvent it

Lessons from the past revived and reinvented for modern and personal sensibilities.

In 2021, I revived the Garden State tomato and the Burpee Sunnybrook Earliana with community partners, the Center for Environmental Transformation and Ron Hutchinson, Associate professor of Biology, Stockton University, with the intent of creating a product prototype. Instead of a prototype, I worked with the East End Food Institute to create a special edition of their Tomato Jam that they sell to support the good work that they do. 

With all the research I’ve done about Jersey tomatoes and the commerce that they produced for seed and tomato companies, I thought I would explore the use of these tomatoes for speciality products. What would that look like? Could this be a model for community organizations to follow to grow, process the seeds and pulp? How could this history meet the moment of the local food system in NJ?

I figured out a way to have specialty tomato products, along with the seeds from the tomatoes in the product as a package deal. A small package of seeds will be included with the product.

Why uncondensed Garden State Tomato Soup?
Campbell’s tomato soup is iconic. And it’s condensed. Edgar Hurff who you will read about below, his soup was ready to serve. So, respect the history of both, revive it, and reinvent with uncondensed as a tribute to both, and all who grew, bred and canned tomatoes, AJTC presents the Garden State Tomato Soup. The pop art design aesthetic is a tribute to Andy Warhol who painted a representation of a product, a Campbell’s tomato soup can. The design aesthetic intersects the Jersey tomato, a lot of it attributed to Campbell’s tomato breeding program, and the roll that the Jersey tomato plays in this iconic American pop culture art series. It also represents the contribution that Jersey tomatoes have made to the equally iconic American comfort food combination of tomato soup and grilled cheese since cans of Campbell’s tomato conttributed a lot to the platform that combo is served on.

The original plan was to make the soup with just the Garden State tomato variety, but that’s changed for 2023. Maybe in 2024 it will be just the Garden State tomatoes. Each year, it will offer the opportunity to change the mixture of tomato varieties and create a Jersey Vintage year.

Warhol why he chose to paint Campbell’s soup cans :

“I used to have the same lunch every day, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.”

I’m going venture a guess that there was a lot of tomato soup in those 20 years. There’s also this Esquire magazine cover created by the legendary George Lois, placing Warhol and a can of Campbell’s tomato soup together in a commercial cover art design.

Edgar Hurff
Hurff was a seedman whose seed company grew so big that instead of adding more hogs to his farm to feed the leftover pulp to, he opened a successful canning company, Hurff, in Swedesboro, NJ. Soup, ketchup, tomato aspic and pork and beans were some of the products they produced.

Their tagline taken from the ad I have from them was The Jersey Tomato People. This ad appeared on the inside front cover, a premium ad buy, of a LIfe magazine from November 1, 1937.

From the ad copy;

“… But when it comes to garden truck (especially tomatoes) we Jersey folks claim that we’re “tops” so we specialize on the things in which we’re specialists. “

So, Jersey pride of growing the best tomatoes is documented in print from 1937. And a tagline too that let people know that Hurff was Jersey tomato’s people in case anyone needed a contact for their “people” to connect with. 

It’s the seed and canning pulp concept in action. There were other companies here that had this model. It’s the prideful boasting centering on Jersey tomatoes that wins a special place in my heart. 

Jersey Ketchup
Ketchup production in Jersey contributed a lot to the development of the Jersey tomato. Hurff was known for his ketchup that was made with pineapple vinegar. So, why not create a ketchup using pineapple vinegar? 

I have seed lists from eleven years of Hurff’s seed business. So, why not use them as a guide for the tomatoes to create a unique ketchup based on the tomatoes he offered in those years? 

Pineapple vinegar is easy enough to make. I’ve made it.

That got me thinking about other ketchups using other fruit-based vinegars. Cranberries and blueberries are native to Jersey soil. I’ve revived tomatoes that were bred or selected in Burlington and Atlantic Counties. Thanks to the work of Elizabeth C. White that she did on her family’s cranberry farm in Whitesbog, Burlington County, NJ, we have a global blueberry crop.

Today, Atlantic County is a commercial bluberry hub and NJ produces a lot of cranberries. 

It's only nature for exploration of the soil component of terroir with tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries, along with the history of it happening with Jersey Ketchup.