More than 35 tomato varieties will compete for bragging rights at the Cuyahoga Valley Farmers Market's fourth annual Tomato Tasting Festival, a free event set for Saturday, August 22, from 9 a.m. to noon at Howe Meadow in Peninsula. Growers, market shoppers and a panel of Northeast Ohio chefs will size up everything from heirlooms and cherry tomatoes to paste, plum, hybrid and slicer varieties in what has become one of the region's biggest celebrations of the summer crop at its peak.
The tasting, held at Howe Meadow's address at 4040 Riverview Road, drew about 4,500 people in 2025, according to Cleveland.com. Because of the crowds and traffic backups the event has generated in past years, the market has changed its traffic pattern, and visitors are asked to follow posted signs and directions from police officers when they arrive.
Market shoppers will get to sample the entries and vote for their favorites, while a separate panel of local chefs will judge tomatoes selected by those same shoppers. The farmer behind the top tomato receives a trophy. Maryann Lipaj, connected to the market, described the local chef community as “incredible, community-driven, engaged and generous,” according to the outlet's report.
A Judging Panel With National Credentials
This year's chef judges include Vinnie Cimino, Lui Fang, Doug Katz and Jeremy Umansky, a lineup that brings serious culinary firepower to a county fairgrounds-style tomato contest. Cimino, executive chef at Cleveland's Cordelia and Rosy, was named a James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef: Great Lakes in both 2024 and 2026, making him the first Cleveland chef to reach the final round since 2015, according to Cleveland Magazine. Cimino recently cooked a family-style dinner for a Cuyahoga Valley benefit dinner.
Umansky, co-owner of Larder Delicatessen and Bakery in Cleveland and co-author of the book Koji Alchemy, earned James Beard nominations for Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2020 and 2023 after Larder itself was nominated for Best New Restaurant in America in 2019, per Lay of the Land. Katz, who works at Kiln, Amba and Zhug across Shaker Heights, Cleveland and Cleveland Heights, opened the European bistro Kiln in Shaker Heights in October 2024 after running the landmark Fire Food & Drink at Shaker Square for 20 years, according to WKYC. Rounding out the panel, Lui Fang works at Abundance in Cleveland Heights, a modern Chinese restaurant set inside a restored 1940s diner.
Meet the Contenders
Jimmy Myers, who won the 2025 People's Choice Award with a tomato called Kakao, plans to enter 10 different tomatoes in this year's competition and considers Kakao and Pink Tomimaru Muchoo among his strongest contenders. Kakao is a dark cocktail tomato variety developed by French seed breeder Gautier Semences, prized for its 4.5-to-5.5-ounce fruits, soft flesh and a naturally savory, almost salty flavor, according to Hepworth Farms. Myers described the standout as very sweet with an unexplainable umami flavor, and said sweetness and depth of flavor are likely to be key factors in this year's judging.
Pink Tomimaru Muchoo, the other entry Myers favors, is an Asian-style pink slicer tomato weighing 6 to 8 ounces that chefs tend to prefer for its high sweetness, reduced acidity and medium-firm texture compared with traditional red slicers, per the same Hepworth Farms profile. Larry Luscheck, who has been certified organic since 1988, won the 2025 competition with a red cherry tomato called Cherry Bomb and grows about 10 types of cherry tomatoes, including his personal favorite, Sungold, a prolific orange cherry tomato known for its sweet flavor. Luscheck also grows slicer tomatoes including Estiva, which weighs about 7 to 9 ounces, but he probably will not enter Sungold in this year's competition, according to Cleveland.com.
Local Farms Behind the Fruit
Two of the market's growers illustrate just how tight the supply chain runs. Front 9 Farm, located in Lodi, grows about 20 tomato varieties in both greenhouses and outdoors, harvesting from May through late fall. Infinite Garden Farm, based in Litchfield, is another of the market's participating growers. Countryside Farmers' Market requires all vendors at Howe Meadow to operate within 75 miles of the site, and several farms tied to the National Park Service's Countryside Initiative sit as close as 2 miles away, according to Ohio Magazine.
That hyper-local sourcing traces back to a federal land-use program launched in 1999, when Cuyahoga Valley National Park established the Countryside Initiative to issue long-term 60-year agricultural leases to private farmers, aimed at restoring historic farmsteads through sustainable and organic practices inside park boundaries, according to the National Park Service. The arrangement helps explain why a farmers market inside a national park has become a proving ground for the state's growing organic sector; Ohio now ranks fifth among all U.S. states in certified organic farming operations, with agriculture remaining the state's top industry across more than 13 million acres of farmland, per Ohio State University's OFFER program.
What Else to Expect at the Festival
Beyond the tomato judging, the festival offers public voting, live music and tomato-themed foods and products, including green tomato jelly, tomato pastries, freeze-dried tomatoes, tomato lemonade and alcohol-free bloody mary popsicles. Organizers also plan tomato-themed merchandise and kid-friendly activities. Participating farmers will identify their tomatoes with signs so visitors know what they are tasting and buying, though tomato sales will vary in quantity and availability by vendor.
The event suggests donations but remains free to attend, and any tomatoes sampled during the tasting will also be available for purchase from the growers on-site. For shoppers looking to stretch their grocery budget, the Countryside Farmers' Market participates in Ohio's Produce Perks program, which gives SNAP/EBT cardholders a dollar-for-dollar match of up to $25 per day toward locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, according to Low Income Relief.
