Refinery29 Quotes Produce Alliance
Avocados Are About To Get More Affordable
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Adding avocado is almost always extra, but come next month, it may be a little more affordable.
According to Bloomberg, after avocado prices spiked in July, die-hard fans are going to catch a break thanks to reinforcements coming from Mexico.
Fans of the green fruit can blame skyrocketing prices on supply and demand. Chowhound reports that avocado consumption has doubled from where it was a decade ago and since it takes time for trees to mature to the point where they can bear fruit, farmers have had some difficulty keeping up with everyone's ravenous appetite for avocado toast and guacamole. Farmers south of the border and in California are expecting a huge crop to come soon, so prices should drop in August and continue to stay lower than they have been through to 2018.
"Prices in the foreseeable future will stabilize a little, and you won’t see a sharp incline," Robert Bonghi, the director of procurement and pricing at Produce Alliance, told Bloomberg. "Growers are trying to put more trees in the ground to keep up."
However, it's not a bargain-basement situation quite yet.
"You're not going to see 10 avocados for a dollar," he added.
Avocados hit their highest price earlier this month, reaching an average of $1.51 per Hass avocado at U.S. supermarkets. That's a 40% increase from just a year ago, according to data culled from the USDA.
"It just seems like there's a really good vibe around avocados," Rick Shade, a California-based avocado farmer, told Bloomberg. "I'd hate to be the wheat farmer who produced the wheat for the bread underneath, because no one's talking about him. Everyone's talking about my avocado on top."
But it's not just Americans feeling the surge of avocado prices. Thanks to those good vibes (or Instagram), avocado prices in France have jumped over 20% in the last year and other European nations are feeling it, too. With farmers planting more than ever, it seems that the avocado market is in for some stabilization. For the farmers' sake, let's hope those snapshots of avocado toast keep bringing in the Likes.
Produce Alliance specializes in providing fresh produce category management services including procurement, national distribution, information services, and food safety assurance to food service clients across North America, the Caribbean and beyond. We manage an alliance of 50+ independently owned specialty distributors of fresh products, with combined produce sales of over $4 billion annually.