Florida’s avocado crop getting ready to kick off

Overview of avocado production from Florida, complemented by charts from Agronometrics. Original published on June 11, 2020.

Avocado harvest is gearing up in south Florida, with harvest and shipments kicking in by early June, shippers said.

Crop prospects may be slightly down compared to last year’s big crop.

“We expect the 2020-21 Florida SlimCado Tropical avocado crop to be somewhat smaller than last year’s, with a later true start date due to extremely dry spring weather,” said Peter Leifermann, vice president of sales and marketing for Brooks Tropicals, Homestead, Fla.

Early season volume may be off 20% to 25% compared with a year ago because of hot weather earlier this year, said Manny Hevia, president of M&M Farms, Miami.

Eddie Caram, general manager of New Limeco, Princeton, Fla., also said his company would start picking avocados the first of June and could continue to March or April next year.

Florida’s greenskin avocados will find a ready market this year, despite the challenge of COVID-19.

“Hispanics love the (Florida greenskin) and I think they will buy them, and I think the supermarket is going to carry them,” Hevia said.

“It is not as big a foodservice item as the hass; the (greenskin) is more of a salad type avocado,” he said.

Even losing perhaps 5% of overall demand because of the decline of foodservice, Hevia said consumer demand will be strong.

“It’s not a super expensive piece of fruit, and I think people are going to buy it,” he said.

Caram said wholesalers are important customers of Florida greenskin avocados, and those wholesalers supply many Hispanic restaurants that use greenskins in salads.

The typical carton for Florida avocados is the double-layer 25-pound box, with the most popular retail sizes from 18s to 24s. Caram said prices are variable through the season but in general will trade in a range from $16 per carton on the low end to $30-35 per carton on the high end.

The News in Charts is a collection of stories from the industry complemented by charts from Agronometrics to help better tell their story.

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