Agronometrics in Charts: Record Supplies of Peruvian Hass Avocados Making Their Way Into the US Market
By
| 2 August 2022
In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Sarah Ilyas studies the state of the Peruvian Hass avocado season. Each week the series looks at a different horticultural commodity, focusing on a specific origin or topic visualizing the market factors that are driving change.
The Hass Avocado Board’s “Volume Date & Projections” report on the HAB website reports that 60,213,112 pounds of Peruvian avocados were shipped to the U.S. market during the week ending August 31. Projections for the current week are estimated at 55,981,366 pounds. Xavier Equihua, president and CEO of the Peruvian Avocado Commission claims that Peru is continuing to increase its own production, with the United States being a very significant market for Peruvian grower-shippers. While Europe is still the number one destination for avocados from Peru, Equihua said that the U.S. is the second-largest destination for Avocados from Peru, and Peru is exporting more fruit to what is the largest market in the world for avocados.
Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)
“2022 is going to be a record year for Peru as we plan to export to the U.S. 300 million lbs. of avocados. This is a first for Peru as we usually export 180 million lbs. which translates to an approximate 45 percent increase over last year,” Xavier says.
Xavier adds that Peru can and should increase its avocado presence in the U.S. market beyond 300 million pounds next year, especially if it wants the category to reach 3 billion pounds in 2023.
Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)
Rob Wedin, executive vice president of sales for Calavo claims that foodservice sales are quickly approaching pre-pandemic levels. According to Wedin, foodservice operators are especially fond of the large size avocados (36s, 32s and 28s) that Peru is noted for. That fruit offers a great value for restaurant operators as it is often priced less expensively than the always popular retail sizes of 48s and 60s, especially on a per-serving basis.
Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)
To help retailers with the sell-in of Peruvian avocados, Equihua says it has launched a more robust marketing campaign that includes among others, expanding its media partnership with NBC, Telemundo and FOX to include more than 50 media markets.
Mission Produce in Oxnard, CA, which has three avocado ranches in Peru totaling more than 4,000 hectares indicated that its Peruvian footprint is growing. Patrick Cortes, senior director of business development and foodservice for Mission, said that the company’s packing facility in Peru, which he called one of the world’s largest avocado operations, will have an “enhanced supply chain” to meet the strong demand that is expected for avocados this summer. He added that Mission utilizes Peruvian avocados to fill the needs of customers across the globe, but most of Mission’s fruit from there is shipped to the United States.
In our ‘In Charts’ series, we work to tell some of the stories that are moving the industry. Feel free to take a look at the other articles by clicking here.
All pricing for domestic US produce represents the spot market at Shipping Point (i.e. packing house/climate controlled warehouse, etc.). For imported fruit, the pricing data represents the spot market at Port of Entry.
You can keep track of the markets daily through Agronometrics, a data visualization tool built to help the industry make sense of the huge amounts of data that professionals need to access to make informed decisions.If you found the information and the charts from this article useful, feel free to visit us at www.agronometrics.com where you can easily access these same graphs, or explore the other 21 commodities we currently track.
Written by: Sarah Ilyas
