About Us

The BonTom Tomato Breeding Group is based in Rehovot, Israel, at the Faculty of Agriculture - one of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s seven faculties. Operating as part of the Faculty’s Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, BonTom is recognized as one of the largest and leading tomato breeding groups worldwide. Under the leadership of Professors Nachum Kedar and Haim Rabinowitch, BonTom has bred and released numerous tomato varieties, providing farmers and customers with better solutions for their growing and marketing needs.

In the early 1990's, BonTom’s research team revolutionized the tomato market by introducing the first extended shelf-life tomato varieties, and was later responsible for a number of market innovations such as upgrading the status of cherry tomatoes, introducing cluster tomatoes, and developing varieties characterized by enhanced flavor, better color, and improved firmness. Each of its modern commercialized cultivars is also characterized by an array of built-in resistances to soil borne and airborne diseases, nematodes and viruses.

Providing seed companies with leading tomato varieties for their seed brands, BonTom’s tomato hybrid seeds are produced by North American, European, and Israeli seed companies. Among those bred and developed by BonTom are fresh market leading tomato varieties such as Daniela (144) , Gavriela , Abigail , Graziella , Shirley , Shanon and Astona . Among well known cherry types are Josefina , Naomi and Shiren. Some of the well known semi determinate varieties produced on huge areas in Mexico are 440 , 494 , 449 , 454 and 458.