May 22, 2007 9:50 AM

Yum Brands Inc has enhanced its tomato agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a Florida farmworker group, to include all its restaurant chains. These include Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, and A&W All-American Food Restaurants.

In an earlier agreement, Yum Brands-owned Taco Bell consented to pay one cent more per pound for tomatoes, with the increase passed onto tomato pickers in Immokalee FL. Farm workers receive about 40 cents per 32-lb bucket of tomatoes. The additional money would almost double their pay to around 72 cents a bucket.

Taco Bell purchases about 110 million pounds of tomatoes annually, and the other Yum chains buy a fraction of that amount