While it’s been somewhat difficult during the initial phase of the current Mexican avocado harvest the avocado supply is looking great and is expected to continue to be so for a period of period of.

The Mexican crop is growing after a difficult last year. At the time, Mexico’s harvest was experiencing extreme dry and saggy weather, which consequently stressed trees. The result was that the crop was likely to be little in size, particularly because the beginning of the season was challenging in obtaining the sizes and quantities required.

But, once local resources for water the crop’s conditions and availability were more regularized. “Though due to the fact that things were complicated, many shifted their sources towards Colombia as well as Peru from June to the end of September” claims David Billings of Stonehill Produce Inc. In the meantime, California also delivered a significant boost, which resulted in an upward revision in the month of June from its initial harvest estimate. All in all, it means that Mexico had only supplied 30% of the total avocado supply when it was that.

Gradual change

The new season of fruits coming from Mexico is beginning to take shape. “However there was not a need to Mexico to hurry in, or people to hunt for the fruit. It was a much more natural process and the other fruit-producing countries, like California, Peru, and Colombia have slowed down and Mexico is coming into its own” claims Billings and adds that Mexico has now returned 70% of the fruit supply.

However, progress the past year was hindered due to stricter dry matter requirements and wetter weather conditions in the past few months. “So the new crop harvest this year is a bit lower than the previous year, and we’re working at around 60 percent from where we were the previous year, in terms of harvesting hectares and so on. From a yield and estimation perspective, there’s plenty of fruits to be harvested.” In the moment, Mexico is picking its “loca” harvest. In Michoacan there are a few growers only about 40 percent of the way through this crop, while normally they’d be throughout the entire. “This is a loca crop that continues to be worked in certain areas until through November” Billings says. Billings adding that it is October which is typically when the next stage of the crop, the aventajada stage, begins. “I’ve witnessed instances where the aventajada has been cultivated at the beginning of the second third of September. This won’t be the case this year, so it could develop slightly.”

Stability and demand

For demand, diversifying the avocado sourcing areas seems to be paying off. “We have had five different sources that supplied us over the past two months and this maintained the supply pretty steady. When you have that steady supply, demand continued to grow,” says Billings. “We’re in a period in the past two months of between five and seven percent more than what we saw in the year before.”

With the abundant quantity of fruit that’s expected, and also the time of plantation and the timing of plantings, there could be a time during the coming season when according to Billings claims, there’ll be many producers coming to the market with fruits in the same period. “That will present a challenge in the market demand,” he says, but he also notes that groups like Avocados from Mexico have already begun to work on increasing the connection avocados enjoy with time of the college football game (and not only during for Super Bowl season).

Are prices fair? Over the last 3 months Mexico was priced in a higher price compared to other regions that are growing. As Mexico increasing the production of its products, costs are slowly falling to levels where different origins were priced.

For more information:

David Billings

Stonehill Produce Inc.

Tel: +1 (949) 488-9613

[email protected]

www.stonehillproduce.com