Store bought tomatoes are bred for productivity and ability to ship. Therefore, your volunteers are likely to provide you with more production but less taste. They will also likely keep longer. Store bought tomato offspring tend to taste a level or two better than their parent though because they get the benefit of growing in the ground and ripening on the vine.

However, many of the larger varieties bought from the store, will produce cherry-sized tomatoes as many store boughts are a cherry-cross.

Many cherry tomato varieties tend to vine out and result in a skinny, crawling plant. So the sickly look may just be the result of the variety.

My volunteers produced late and not that prolifically. Also the taste wasn't there. What type of cherries are you talking about?
Sharon

I've kept several compost volunteers over the years out of curiosity. Maybe 1 in 10 will have a decent flavor without any undesirable traits (specifically extra thick skin seems to occur a lot), so I've concluded it isn't worth it. Some have been bland, but others have tasted outright bad. That's been my experience.

I can't imagine having 7 cherry tomato plants and little production. Maybe you need more sun or need to enhance your soil. I sure wish we could all send you some fantastic seeds!

I've only grown out a volunteer once, and it was a positive experience.

I had a large grape tomato come up in the compost area several years ago, and grew it for three years. The fruit were consistent across the various years, so the original fruit from the grocery seemed not to have been hybrid.

It was a very healthy and productive variety. Taste was good but not anywhere near great. [Though the neighbor's son who cuts my pasture would happily snack on them as he walked past, and he doesn't even like tomatoes.]

I started some seed for it this spring, and if the Late Blight doesn't hit again, I'll compare it with some other grape varieties.

We get compost-able materials from a local coffee shop - mostly grounds but lots of veggie castoffs too. We have put it directly into our beds & often get volunteers of tomatoes, peppers, & squash. I've only let some of the tomato & pepper volunteers survive long enough to taste the fruit & of those one of the peppers was good but the tomatoes didn't have any flavor. They were good growers, though! If I knew how to graft & had the time for it, maybe I'd use their rootstock. :)
Wintersown.org has tomato seeds for an SASE. They have so many varieties it can make your head spin. Might be worth looking them over & trying to pick out some that might work in your zone. Also, you can do a search on this forum to find out what will grow well in your area. One of the most important things for growing great tomatoes is having great soil, though, as RyseRyse said. They are heavy feeders.
Good luck!

I grow Heirloom tomatoes, so the next year's volunteers are always terrific. Last year I had so many the garden became in impenetrable jungle. I must be hard hearted and remove more this year, but it seems a shame to remove such lovely babies.

Many thanks for the great responses!!!

I may end up lucky in terms of taste as even our grocery store tomatoes are relatively local (you can drive across the entire country from furthest tip to tip in under 6 hours) and taste garden-fresh in comparison to the veggies I've bought at the store when in the U.S. (totally tasteless horrible things).

My soil is slowly (way too slowly!!) improving via the compost I've been growing and adding and I've space in the 'improved' area for 4 tomato plants (ground that now bakes into something like a crumbly brick rather than solid cement in the sun). Perhaps I should try the volunteers in the cement-mimicking soil and see what happens?!