I was wondering what is going on in the world of Avocado’s. There isn’t an abundance and in some cases there are none. I ran across this story from CNBC who tells you to ‘kiss your avocados goodbye’. Their title is: Avocado supply shrinks, prices soar. As someone who counts on avocados for my enjoyment of food, this is very disheartening. But as we read the article, we clearly see that while it is partially about the drought in Mexico, “The primary issue revolved around sales negotiations between the growers and packers.”
If you would like to share this article to your facebook page or throughout your social media and let people you know what’s going on, that would help spread the word and give a good understanding about what’s going on with avocados!
Happy Healthy Eating,
Don’t be surprised if you can’t find guacamole to go with chips at your favorite Mexican restaurant. There’s a shortage of avocados, and as a result supply is low and prices have doubled — and in some cases tripled — from a year ago.
And those sky-high prices at supermarkets could be around until after the Super Bowl, when guacamole demand soars, according to produce experts.
“We’re not going to have any avocados for anybody for maybe a week and a half,” said Cythnia Guzman of Nature’s Produce, a fresh fruit broker and distributor in Vernon, California. “We’re seeing fruit out there at double the price it normally would be.”
Hormel Foods, owner of Wholly Guacamole — the nation’s top-selling branded guacamole — said in statement it is monitoring the situation and leveraging its global supply chain to “minimize any potential business disruptions.”
In recent weeks, the U.S. market supply has dwindled as a result of a grower’s strike in Mexico. It has left retailers struggling to find avocados and resulted in some restaurants temporarily dropping guacamole from menus.
“We’ve been out of guacamole for four days now,” Abigail Alfaro, who helps manage the Le Vecindad taco establishment in San Diego, said Friday. “Hopefully we will get some avocados soon.”
Other major Mexican restaurant chains were contacted and most didn’t want to talk about the issue although one indicated they had “proactively prepared” for the situation.
The cost of avocados is likely to put pressure on the bottom line of restaurant chains of all sizes as they struggle to hold down on costs. Indeed, avocados was one of the “primary” areas where BJ Restaurants said it is seeing pressure in commodities, the CFO Greg Levin told analysts last week during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.
America’s appetite for the green fruit has soared in recent years due to health-conscious consumers, the popularity of Mexican food, and fruit appearing on more restaurant menus. It also has helped that Avocados From Mexico, the marketing organization for avocados, has run Super Bowl commercials in recent years.
Mexico is the major supplier this time of year for avocados and shipments from there have fallen more than 60 percent in recent weeks, according to data from the Hass Avocado Board. The strike was just resolved but the tight supplies and the very high prices of as much as $3 apiece for large avocados could be around for some time, according to grocers.
“The interruption in harvesting was driven by internal industry issues that have been addressed with mediation by the Michoacan State Government and the Mexican Department of Agriculture,” said the Association of Producers and Exporters of Mexican Avocado (APEAM) in a statement. “The primary issue revolved around sales negotiations between the growers and packers.”
Michoacan is one the world’s largest avocado producing regions and accounts for about 80 percent of Mexico’s roughly 3 billion pounds of production. California’s avocado crop also is substantial although it has been coping with the drought and the harvest peaked in July and since has wound down.