For a few years now, one corporation has been asking folks around the United States, “how tasty are your tomatoes?”

NatureSweet, a leading tomato producer in the United States, will bring its “Homegrown Tomato Challenge” to Warwick this September.

So it’s a chance for those folks around here who like to brag about the their tomatoes to prove they grow the best tomatoes around.

It’s also a chance to win a little cash.

The challenge will be held at 9 a.m. on Sept. 19, at Stop & Shop’s 575 Greenwich Avenue location. Tomatoes entered into the challenge will be categorized as either large or small. One grand prizewinner from each category will win $2,500. Four runners up will receive $250 gift certificates to Stop & Shop.

NatureSweet will apply the same standards it uses on its own tomatoes to those of the tomatoes that home growers will submit. This includes a brix test, which measures a tomato’s sweetness, by its sugar content. It also includes a taste test with local celebrities as the judges.

The Homegrown Tomato Challenge, started in 2003, seems as though it may be counterintuitive. But it’s not, said Kathryn Ault, marketing director for NatureSweet. That’s because, she said, Naturesweet’s mission is to celebrate fresh quality tomatoes.

It was also came about as a response to the summer season’s status as a typically soft period of reduced volume for tomato producers.

In these hottest months of the year people who have the means will grow their own tomatoes.

“So if you can’t beat them, join them,” Ault said, in a phone call from Guadalajara, Mexico.

Folks, upon hearing about the contest, either write off the marketing people at NatureSweet are “absolutely crazy” for holding the annual challenge, or, think that it’s “the best idea in the world,” Ault said.

Ault, who said she attends the challenges, observed that those who buy NatureSweet tomatoes are often the same people who grow their own. They tend to be passionate about tomatoes. Especially the ones they grow.

“[The tomatoes] are their babies,” Ault said. “They appreciate great taste.”

“It’s just about fresh tomatoes,” Ault said of NatureSweet’s mission. “We pick the best tomatoes year round. They are hand-packed and handpicked.”

Ault said that NatureSweet, a subsidiary of Desert Glory, LTD, which is based in San Antonio, Texas, is the only large farm producer that “picks against specification.” The company grows the plants only in regions where they are indigenous. In order to maintain a fresh and “always in season” product year-round the company ensures that its farmers grow the tomatoes at proper elevations and temperatures to create the “perfect climatic conditions” for their cultivation.

“If it doesn’t make the grade, it doesn’t make the brand,” Ault said. The company doesn’t waste, however. The lower graded tomatoes do find use in a variety of ways, perhaps as other brands or for use in products made by other corporations. They may even become feed for livestock.

“We do have other outlets,” said Ault.

To promote the challenge, and its products, NatureSweet aligns with local grocery stores. In this case, it is Stop and Shop. It’s the first time the contest is being held in Rhode Island. It has been held in New England on other occasions. Last year, it was held at a Hannaford’s store in Leominster, Mass. A few years before that another grocery store in Vermont had also hosted the challenge.

Warwick is one of just a handful of cities that will host the competition this year. The other host cities are Arvada, Colo.; Lexington, Ky.; Clifton Park, N.Y.; Howell, Mich., and McLean, Virginia. This is the seventh year that the Homegrown Tomato Challenge has run.

Those tomatoes that receive the highest Brix scores will move on to the final round, a blind taste test where local celebrity judges will determine which tomato has the best flavor.

Though it has only been in existence for seven years, Homegrown Tomato Challenge organizers say their event has already gained a small legion of loyal contestants who travel to enter their fruits-vegetables.

Tomato growers can pre-register for the challenge by grabbing entry forms in the produce department at Stop & Shop, or by registering online at www.naturesweettomatoes.com.

Contestants can also register the day of the challenge by bringing either three large tomatoes, or six small tomatoes to the event.

Ever the tomato enthusiasts, the folks at NatureSweet, in materials promoting the challenge, cleared it up the confusion over the food’s ambiguous status as both fruit and vegetable.

Botanically speaking, a tomato is botanically a fruit and not a vegetable. As stated on NatureSweet’s website, “This is because it develops from the ovary of the plant after fertilization has occurred. However, it is categorized by its use, thus making it a vegetable by law. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1893 that because the tomato is eaten with the main part of the meal instead of dessert, it is indeed a vegetable.”