May 21, 2003

Dear Grower:

CTGA SIGNS $50.00 CONTRACT WITH MORNING STAR
The California Tomato Growers Association is pleased to announce that it has signed a contract for the 2003 season with The Morning Star Packing Co. for $50.00 per net ton.

The agreement calls for a Base Price of $49.00 per net ton and has an upside potential of $52.00 per net ton for growers with good soluble solids. The following provisions add $1.00 to the Base price to bring the equating price to $50.00:

A MOT deduction of 1X for MOT grades of less than or equal to 1% and 3X for loads with grades of 1.5% and greater,
A Grass Green deduct of 1X through the entire range of grades,
An Early Season Premium of $2.00 per net ton for those loads delivered during the first ten days of the season. The start of the season in the north will be determined by the start-up date of the Williams plant and for the south the date will be determine by the start-up dates of the Los Banos and/or Liberty plants. Morning Star has agreed to guarantee the value attributed to the Early Season Premium’s contribution to the $50.00 price.
The Variety premium has been enhanced to close the gap and meet the $50.00 per net ton target price.

The contract includes standard Late Season Premiums of $5.00 for tomatoes delivered from September 14 through September 20, $7.50 per net ton for tomatoes delivered from September 21 through September 27 and $10.00 per net ton for tomatoes delivered from September 28 through the end of the season. The advancement of the late season Premiums by one day from the traditional start date of September 15th was made to accommodate the Company’s week ending dates.

In addition to the above, Morning Star has included a Soluble Solids program that is revenue neutral but definitely spreads the playing field. Modeled after Stanislaus Food Product’s VIP Program, growers will put $2.00 in the pot and compete for returns as high as $4.00 or an additional $2.00 to the Base Price. Growers will be divided into four groups, north/south and early/late. All deliveries to Williams will constitute the north and all other deliveries will fall in the south group. Early deliveries will be those from the start of the season through August 30 and the late all deliveries thereafter. Growers will compete on:

A variety by variety basis
Based on the average Soluble Solids
a) For all deliveries to a respective processing plant (north/south)
b) Broken down by timing (early/late).

The top ten percent of the loads with the highest Soluble Solids, by variety for a particular group, will receive $2.00. The next ten percent receive $1.75, the next $1.50 and so forth as outlined below.

	Total Variety Tons	Incentive

Highest Average Solids	10%	$2.00
	10%	$1.75
	10%	$1.50
	10%	$1.25
	10%	$1.00
	10%	-$1.00
	10%	-$1.25
	10%	-$1.50
	10%	-$1.75
Lowest Average Solids	10%	-$2.00

Members growing for The Morning Star Packing Co. are hereby released to sign the above CTGA approved contract. The Association is in close discussions with the remaining canners and expects other announcements to be made shortly.

CTGA Evaluates its Effectiveness
The Board of Directors for California Tomato Growers Association is continuously trying to determine how it can better serve California’s processed tomato growers. Recently, the Board contracted the services of The Hale Group to evaluate CTGA’s current operations in light of evolving industry conditions to determine how to re-position the Association in order to provide greater value to growers and their customers. The Hale Group is a management consulting firm that specializes in assisting clients in the food and agribusiness system with offices in San Francisco, Boston, and Washington, D.C.

As a part of this effort, the Board has asked The Hale Group to conduct extensive interviews with CTGA members, non-members, processors, producer/processors, Brokers, and the allied industry. All interview comments will be held in the strictest confidence by The Hale Group, and in its report to the Board will summarize the comments of all participants, but will not attribute any specific comments to any particular individual.

The Association encourages all individuals that have been contacted to participate in this important exercise and help shape the future of the industry.

New Irrigation Pump Efficiency Program Offers $6.4 Million
The Center for Irrigation Technology (CIT) as CSU Fresno is now implementing a $6.4 million program to improve the efficiency of irrigation pumps in the Central Valley. Funding for the program was made available by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Goals of the new project include conducting efficiency tests on as many as 5,000 pumps, and repairing about 500 pumps as a way to decrease electricity and natural gas consumption. Education is also a major component of the program, and CIT will be using two specially equipped mobile trailers to present 26 seminars statewide during 2003. The demonstrations are intended to show how to purchase and maintain efficient pumping systems.

The program will pay up to $200 for a single pump test and up to 65% of the cost of retrofitting or repair. Those eligible to participate must be agricultural rate customers of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison Company, Southern California Gas Company or San Diego Gas and Electric. CIT is taking applications through December 21, 2003.

Program details are available at www.pumpefficiency.org or by contacting toll free the San Joaquin Valley Regional Office at 800-845-6038, the Northern California Regional office at 866-333-8938, the Southern California Regional Office at 866-333-8938, or the Central Coast Regional Office at 800-845-6038.

May Water Data
U.S. NATURAL RESOURCE CONSERVATION SERVICE SNOW SURVEY

State and River Basin

Precipitation for water year

Storage Apr. 30 (1,000 af)

Storage
year ago

Snow water % of average

California

North Coast

San Francisco Bay

Central Coast

South Coast

Sacramento Basin

San Joaquin Valley

Tulare Lake

North Lahontan

South Lahontan

115%

114%

92%

98%

102%

88%

95%

81%

107%

2,746

382

675

1,341

14,564

7,729

974

322

256

2,524

494

712

1,259

12,098

7,949

955

415

287

142%

176%

126%

70%

752%

135%

Industry News

Muir Glen, a part of Small Planet Foods, a unit of Minneapolis-based General Mills, Inc., has extended its organic pasta sauce line with three zesty new flavors: Four Cheese Pasta Sauce, Fire Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce, and Spicy Tomato Pasta Sauce.

Heinz Reports 3rd Quarter Operating Income Increase of 14.1%
Operating income (excluding special items) showed significant improvement for the quarter, increasing 14.1%. Heinz completed the transaction by which it spun off its U.S. and Canadian pet food, U.S. tuna and retail private label soup, and U.S. infant feeding businesses to its shareholders and then merged these businesses with Del Monte Corporation. The third quarter performance refocused the company’s global portfolio on 15 power brands, led by the Heinz brand, which generates approximately 30% of total sales.

ConAgra Packaged Foods Up 8%
ConAgra Foods, Inc., one of America’s leading packaged food companies, reported third quarter earnings in line with recent company estimates. Packaged Foods gross profit for the third quarter of 2003 increased 2% versus the first-half increase of 6% reflecting effective cost management and improved mix. The slower rate of growth is primarily due to the foodservice environment. The second-half of fiscal 2003 is shaping up well for year-over-year growth.

Campbell Soup Reports 9 Percent Rise In Wet Soup Shipments
For the third quarter of fiscal 2003 U.S. wet soup shipments rose 10 percent. Outside of the U.S., wet soup shipments increased 8 percent, resulting in a 9 percent increase worldwide. Sales of North American Sauces and Beverages rose 1 percent and operating earnings rose 13 percent compared to the year-ago period.

Unilever’s Net Profit Rises 16%
Unilever posted a 16% increase in 2002 profit, as it continued to meet its objectives for its current five-year reorganization and provided the first growth targets for the next five-year plan.

Unilever is in the midst of its so-called Path to Growth reorganization, begun in 2000 with the goal of honing the group’s portfolio by selling off hundreds of marginal brands and aggressively pushing the growth of the remaining names through higher advertisement and spinoffs into new products and categories. Unilever expects sales of the leading 400 brands to grow 5% to 6%, earnings to grow in the low double digits and operating margins to rise above 16% by 2004.

Fourth-quarter sales from its food division grew 7.3%. While Unilever has traditionally been strong in home and personal care, it has vastly strengthened its food division since the 2000 acquisition of U.S. food group Bestfoods. Unilever now is the world’s No. 3 food group after Nestlé SA and Kraft Foods Inc.

Tomato Factory Sale
RALCORP Holdings has just sold the former Colusa County Canning Co. tomato paste plant in Williams, California to an affiliate of SK Foods of Lemoore, California, for an undisclosed sum. The facility was operated by Ralcorp’s Carriage House subsidiary. SK is also a producer of tomato paste and diced tomatoes. Ralcorp will continue its focus on manufacturing other private label food products.

Processing Tomato Crop Size

Guesstimator Contest

Mail form by May 28, 2003 to:
California Tomato Growers Association, Inc.
10730 Siskiyou Lane, Stockton, CA 95207
or fax to: (209) 478-9460

Check One: r Grower r Allied Industry Personnel

Name:

Firm:

Address:

Phone:

My estimate of the 2003 California processing tomato
crop size is tons.

John C. Welty
Executive Vice President

Incentive

California