California Fruit and Vegetable

Category: Economics

  • Westfalia Fruit Expecting Strong 2023 Gem Avocado Season

    Westfalia Fruit, the market leader in growing, ripening, handling, and distributing quality avocados, announces the start of its 2023 GEM® avocado season, expecting a strong supply of fruit from mid-April through mid-July.

    Westfalia Fruit US is excited to present the GEM® avocado to the United States market. GEM is a gourmet avocado that Westfalia holds exclusive marketing rights in Africa, the EU, and many other regions of the world. GEM® is truly a unique avocado with gold-flecked skin and a creamy, buttery texture. It is a larger piece of fruit with a slightly nutty flavor. GEM® is a gourmet avocado that will elevate the avocado category.

    “The GEM® avocado has an exceptional flavor profile and is the darling of chefs, home cooks, and foodie fanatics alike,” said Raina Nelson, President/CEO Westfalia Fruit Marketing USA LLC. “Westfalia Fruit has successfully and exclusively marketed the GEM® in key markets across the globe to create a best-in-category avocado that drives consumers to a new avocado destination. We are excited to launch similar programs here in the U.S. and build upon the global GEM® successes we’ve designed with world class retailers.”

    Westfalia Fruit US’s GEM® program will be supplied with California fruit but the variety is abundantly grown in other areas of the world like South Africa. The GEM® avocado is a sustainable cultivar with its high yield of fruit on compact trees that are protected from harsh environmental elements under a plush tree canopy. The post-harvest fruit quality is tremendous, and the fruit is hand-plucked at peak ripeness to deliver delicious fruit to consumer’s plates.

    “We anticipate a healthy season for the GEM® variety this year. We are enthusiastic to build dazzling customer programs to drive GEM® awareness with consumers through innovative and proven methodologies that make avocado programs shine,” shares Nelson.

    Westfalia markets prime-quality, ready-to-eat avocados across the globe through its vertically integrated supply chain as well as its technical and commercial expertise. Westfalia is committed to producing safe, exceptional quality food, all while ensuring sustainable, ethical, and responsible management of its bio-resources and the communities and environments across the globe.

    For more information visit www.westfaliafruit.com.

    About Westfalia Fruit Group

    Established over 70 years ago, Westfalia Fruit Group is a global, vertically integrated company and market leader in growing, ripening, processing, shipping, and distributing the product.  The company is committed to sustainability by developing a thorough strategy, which prioritizes the environment, local economies, and most importantly, their people. Westfalia Fruit Group is devoted to producing safe, high-quality food whilst ensuring the sustainable and responsible management of its bio-resources, communities and environment in which they operate. The company is the global leader in varietal and root stock development, protecting the produce industry, now and for the future. To learn more about Westfalia Fruit Group, visit www.westfaliafruit.com/.

  • Ocean Mist® Farms Launches Annual Gold Standard Artichoke Promotion

    Ocean Mist Farms, the leading grower and marketer of fresh artichokes in North America, announces the launch of its annual spring promotion conveying the health and nutrition benefits and accolades of their famous Gold Standard artichokes. The Gold Standard Giveaway will run from April 24 – June 1, giving participants the opportunity to win one Grand Prize VISA gift card valued at $1,000 or one of five VISA gift cards valued at $100.

    With this promotion, Ocean Mist Farms is highlighting their artichoke expertise to ensure their trade partners are aware of all that goes into the Gold Standard distinction, as well as shine a light on the exceptional nutritional qualities of fresh artichokes.

    “Throughout each year, we are proud to share our Gold Standard artichokes,” said Mark Munger, senior director of marketing at Ocean Mist Farms. “Ocean Mist Farms artichokes are THE Gold Standard for providing immune-boosting nutrition and a top source of fiber, with one whole cooked artichoke packing nearly 7 grams of fiber — about a third of the daily minimum target. Thissuperior nutrition profile, coupled with Ocean Mist Farms rich legacy and artichoke expertise, bring the Gold Standard to your produce department.”

    For nearly 100 years, Ocean Mist Farms has cultivated premium quality artichokes – including many patented proprietary varieties – in the coveted microclimate and nutrient-rich soil of Castroville, CA. This is home to Ocean Mist Farms’ spring artichoke production, with the heaviest supply production being in April.

    Decades of farming proficiency and excellence, coupled with their exceptional harvesting practices and land stewardship, further define this brand as worthy of the Gold Standard designation. Ocean Mist Farms is supporting retail sales for the Gold Standard promotion with a variety of marketing activations.

    On-pack messaging will reinforce shopper awareness of Ocean Mist Farms branded artichokes and their Gold Standard commitment. The brand will also drive visitors to the artichoke nutrition webpage and encourage shoppers to purchase artichokes at their local grocery store with the help of their Destini locator tool found on www.oceanmist.com.

    About Ocean Mist Farms

    Ocean Mist Farms, a fourth-generation family-owned business located in Castroville, CA., and the largest grower of fresh artichokes in North America, is committed to delivering the highest standards in the industry for food safety, product quality, customer service, innovation, and sustainability. The company’s full line of over 30 fresh vegetables includes the award-winning Season & Steam line. To stay up to date on the 2023 artichoke season, follow Ocean Mist on Instagram. To learn more about Ocean Mist Farms, visit https://www.oceanmist.com/. For recipe inspiration and preparation tips, follow the brand on Facebook,Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

  • Breeding a Better Potato for a Better Potato Chip

    Photo courtesy of Potatoes USA.

    Potato chips are America’s classic snack: crunchy, salty, greasy and tasting of potato or flavored with sour cream, vinegar, BBQ, maple bacon or Cajun dill. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Americans eat more potato chips than any other nation; more than four pounds a person a year, according to Potatoes USA. About 22 percent of the U.S. potato crop—nearly 7,500 million pounds annually—are made into chips. Consumers spend more than $7 billion dollars buying potato chips at retailers. And USDA’s Agricultural Research Service helps ensure that the country always has the perfect potato for frying into chips.

    ARS’ potato breeding program has already produced some major winners in the potato chip category. One is Atlantic, a variety ARS developed and released in 1976, that remains the number two chipping variety in the United States.

    But potato producers have been ready for an Atlantic replacement for years. Atlantic is vulnerable to internal heat necrosis, where darker spots or flecks form in the flesh of the potato particularly in sandy soils during warm, dry seasons. It is also susceptible to Hollow Heart, a condition in which a hollow depression forms in the center of the potato when moisture levels are very uneven while the potatoes are growing.

    “But diseases and pests keep evolving, so we need to keep breeding new varieties to stay ahead of them,” explained Research Geneticist Richard Novy, with the Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research Unit in Aberdeen, Idaho.

    Every year, scientists in the ARS potato breeding program make thousands of chipping potato crosses with an eye to improving not only disease and pest resistance, but also achieving perfect potato chip color and proper sugar levels, good storage ability and a whole host of superior agronomic traits such as yield, time to harvest and tuber size.

    Novy has a very promising new chipping potato in the pipeline at Aberdeen, known right now as A13125-3C, which is showing much potential in Idaho and in the National Chip Processing Trial (NCPT). ARS participates alongside universities and industry in the NCPT, which is run through Potatoes USA, to test potatoes simultaneously at sites all over the country.

    A13125-3C won’t get a catchy variety name until after it successfully completes several years of trials and then goes through a tissue culture process to remove any viruses and bacteria to allow the production of certified seed for producers.

    “By sharing access to germplasm and testing nationally, you can more quickly identify candidates having variety potential for the chipping industry,” Novy said. “Such a program helps regional chip companies to identify promising new potato varieties for their production of chips.”

    Across the country from the Aberdeen lab, ARS Plant Research Geneticist Paul Collins in Orono, Maine, is concentrating on breeding chipping potatoes with better disease resistance for eastern potato growers. One major focus is potatoes that can better withstand Late Blight, a fungal disease that causes an annual loss of $210 million.

    “Most diseases we are working on can affect the farmer’s ability to produce a potato crop and they can have a staggering economic impact,” Collins said. “Potato Virus Y, for example, causes annual losses of $103 million in yield and tuber quality.

    While ARS scientists are breeding potatoes to fight diseases, most consumers do not have to worry about their snack being affected by any of these viruses. The chipping varieties for the snack aisle, usually Atlantic, Snowden and Lamoka, are not found in the grocery store’s produce bins.

    “Our goal is to breed potato varieties which are resistant to these diseases, and with other agronomic traits that are important to farmers while also having quality traits like color, shape and size that are important to consumers and processors,” Collins said.

    The Agricultural Research Service is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research agency. Daily, ARS focuses on solutions to agricultural problems affecting America. Each dollar invested in U.S. agricultural research results in $20 of economic impact.

  • Soil Nutrients Affect How Attractive Plants Are to Bees From the Ground Up

    Pollination is vital for many plants, and nutrients present in the soil before these plants even sprout may affect how attractive they eventually are to pollinators, according to Penn State-led research.

    In a study with cucumber plants, the researchers found that in general, higher amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil resulted in larger plants and floral display, including flower number and size, leading to increased attractiveness to pollinators and increased fruit production.

    However, they also found that regardless of nitrogen and phosphorus levels, pollinator “rewards” such as sugar content in nectar, the amount of nectar in female flowers, and protein and lipid concentrations in pollen stayed the same.

    Anthony Vaudo, a USDA Forest Service research biological scientist who led the research while a postdoctoral scholar in entomology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, said these findings — recently published in Scientific Reports — suggest that plants may prioritize these rewards in all conditions to ensure that they attract pollinators.

    “We found that a plant could become more attractive with the help of certain nutrients in the soil, while also keeping the quality of its rewards consistent, which is necessary for getting bees to visit,” Vaudo said. “This gives us clues for how we can best restore soil, for example, after disturbance from human activity or natural disasters.”

    According to the researchers, previous studies have found an association between higher nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil and faster plant growth, as well as positive effects such as number and size of flowers and pollen number and size. However, little work had been done on how these nutrients affect pollinator attraction and, ultimately, plant reproduction.

    Christina Grozinger, Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology at Penn State, said that because soil nutrient conditions can change as a result of land use, climate change and land management — such as fertilizers and grazing livestock — it is vital to learn more about how these nutrients affect plant growth.

    “With three quarters of our food crops using pollinators to set fruit and seed, and more than 80% of flowering plants benefiting from pollinators,” Grozinger said, “it is incredibly important that we begin to understand and predict how these changes in soil conditions influence plant-pollinator interactions both in crops and in natural landscapes.”

    For the study, the researchers raised cucumber plants in Penn State greenhouses. They treated the plants with one of five fertilizer solutions: a control that had no added nitrogen or phosphorus and four others with different nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations and ratios.

    The researchers measured several characteristics of the plants, including height and above-ground biomass, the size of each plant’s male and female flowers, how many flowers each plant produced, how long it took the plants to start producing flowers after seeding, and how many cucumbers each plant produced. They also analyzed the flowers’ nectar and pollen, as well as how often the flowers were visited by bumblebees.

    After analyzing the data, the researchers found that while more nitrogen and phosphorus generally was associated with increased growth, attractiveness to pollinators and fruit production, very high levels of nitrogen began to have negative effects on some of these traits. However, increasing phosphorus levels could then mitigate this.

    Overall, they found that the ideal ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus that they tested was 4:1, which resulted in best overall growth, pollinator attraction and reproduction.

    Junpeng Mu, a researcher at Mianyang Normal University who visited Penn State while working on this project, said he thought it was particularly interesting that certain traits of the male flowers — such as number and size of flowers per plant, nectar concentration and pollen number per flower — varied with soil nutrients, but traits of the female flowers did not.

    “These findings give us a better understanding of the mechanisms that underlie interactions between plants and pollinators,” Mu said, “as well as agricultural ecosystem operations.”

    Additionally, Vaudo said he expects the findings will also be useful in his current position, in which he’ll be part of an effort to rehabilitate areas of forests that have been logged. He said the soil is often very compact from the heavy machinery that has rolled through these areas, as well as lacking in nutrients.

    “After loosening the soil, we’ll apply a material called biochar to increase the soil’s ability to hold water and bind nutrients,” Vaudo said. “Then, we can start reintroducing plants and pollinators to the area. I’m thankful to have the experience from this study, which gave me a good starting ground for actually doing some real-life applications.”

    The China Scholarship Council, Wyman’s of Maine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture helped support this research.

    Harland Patch, assistant research professor in entomology at Penn State, and Emily Erickson, University of California, Davis, also participated in this work. — By Katie Bohn, Pennsylvania State University

  • Local Organizations Address Critical Gaps For Those Impacted by Flooding in Monterey County

    Spring marks the return of fruit and vegetable harvest in the Salinas Valley region. With heavy rains, cold winter weather and our area recovering from flooding, that harvest has been delayed but consumers can be assured that they will enjoy leafy greens, vegetables and strawberries with the harvest continuing into November.

    While we understand the importance of providing healthy produce to consumers, recovery remains the priority with major efforts undertaken to help communities recover from flooding. One small town in particular in Monterey County, Pajaro, has suffered from widespread damage due to a major breach of the Pajaro River levee on March 10. This breach left homes, businesses and farms flooded and crucial jobs lost.

    This will be a long road to recovery for this largely farm worker community as federal disaster assistance was not immediately available and not approved until weeks after the flooding occurred. This delayed help with rent assistance, clean-up and repairs to homes and businesses. To offset and augment delayed federal assistance, many businesses and individuals contributed to local charities to help with immediate needs for residents including short-term housing, food, furniture, clothing and other essentials.

    To fill a crucial gap in health care needs, the Grower Shipper Association of Central California (GSA) and Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas (Clinica) immediately stepped in to provide medical care, medication replacement and hygiene supplies in the aftermath of the flooding.

    GSA and Clinica set up a mobile clinic at the main shelter for displaced Pajaro residents so services were readily accessible and then moved it to Pajaro once evacuation orders were lifted. The medical care was funded by a grant awarded to GSA therefore these services were provided free-of-charge to the community.

    To date, 43% (1,500) of Pajaro residents have accessed the medical services and essential supplies provided by the GSA/Clinica partnership.

    “While we were pleased that federal assistance was approved on April 4 to help residents, businesses and farms recover, the flooding occurred on March 10 so it was imperative to provide immediate assistance to this severely impacted community and address gaps,” says Christopher Valadez, GSA President. “As we did during the pandemic, GSA and Clinica worked quickly to provide crucial services for impacted residents to offset delays in government services.”

    Long-term, the attention is on job recovery since individual farms in Pajaro employed hundreds and suffered severe losses and it could take local businesses weeks to reopen. But temporary housing is the most crucial need and unemployment compounds the problem.

    GSA is committed to continue to help communities impacted by flooding. As we enter spring and we see the harvest begin, there is a seemingly reassuring component to a return to the business of providing food to consumers. But, we must keep our attention on those in long-term need of critical support. — Grower-Shipper Association of Central California

  • Weed Management Critical Needs for CA Processing Tomatoes

    Amber Vinchesi-Vahl, UCCE — The Pest Management Strategic Plan for Processing Tomatoes in California (see attachment) was published in May 2021 and encompasses a wealth of information on pest issues and farming practices for processing tomatoes in California.

    Myself, Cooperative Extension Specialist Cassandra Swett, and UC IPM collaborated on creating this document directly from stakeholder input and funding from the Western IPM Center. Below I have highlighted the documented critical needs for managing weeds in processing tomato production in California (more detail on each can be found in the PMSP, cited below). These needs were prioritized by growers, PCAs, academics and industry for the state, the northern growing region and the southern growing region and include research, regulatory and education priorities.

    “Statewide Critical Needs for Weeds

    Research

    1. Develop and identify management methods (including, but not limited to, herbicides) that work for difficult-to-control and perennial weeds, particularly nutsedge and field bindweed.
      1. Better understand weed biology and how to influence weed biology for the purposes of weed management, especially methods to break the dormancy of belowground structures (especially field bindweed and nutsedge).
    2. Develop effective, affordable methods to eradicate branched broomrape from processing tomato fields, prevent its spread, and manage infestations if it becomes well established in California (see Northern Region Critical Needs for Weeds for more information).
      1. Identify effective and practical sanitation methods, especially for eliminating broomrape seed on harvesting equipment (See Statewide General Critical Needs #3).
      2. Develop methods to detect branched broomrape and Egyptian broomrape in tomato fields more easily.” (p. 12).

    “Northern Region Critical Needs for Weeds

    Research

    1. Develop integrated weed management methods (including herbicides) for difficult weeds such as fleabane, horseweed, groundcherries, velvetleaf, nightshades, and glyphosate-resistant ryegrass and sunflowers.
    2. Conduct necessary efficacy research to register herbicides as described in the Northern Region Critical Needs for Weeds, Regulatory Needs.
    3. Identify environmental conditions and production practices that produce different weed problems, including soil quality and water management, and the efficacy of cultural practices to manage such weeds.
    4. Determine effective management practices for broomrape infestations.Research management practices (including herbicides) that control nightshades and reduce reliance on the costly practice of hand weeding.Research management practices (including herbicides) that control nightshades and reduce reliance on the costly practice of hand weeding.
      1. Determine the efficacy of methyl bromide alternatives (e.g., metam sodium/metam potassium, solarization, conventional herbicides).
      2. Identify biological control agents that may attack broomrape and test potential options.
      3. Determine or confirm how broomrape spreads from field to field, and ways to prevent its spread.
    6. Test efficacy of more postemergence herbicides (particularly those that can be sprayed over the top of the crop) and herbicides available for fallow bed weed control.

    Regulatory

    1. Add or expand herbicide registrations.
      1. Register more fallow bed and preplant herbicides and increase application options (especially aerial and helicopter applications) to give growers weed control options to use in wet preplant conditions.
      2. Explicitly register herbicides for fallow bed management, not just preplant use.
      3. Identify and register herbicides that can be used near almond orchards.
      4. Register herbicides for difficult weeds such as fleabane, groundcherries, horseweed, nightshades, velvetleaf, and glyphosate-resistant ryegrass and sunflowers.
      5. Pursue 24(c) labels or Section 18 exemptions where necessary and possible.
      6. Register postemergence herbicides that are safe to apply over the top of the tomato crop to kill late-season weeds.

    Education

    1. Educate growers and pest control advisers on how to reduce herbicide drift. Many of the herbicides registered in processing tomato (e.g., carfentrazone) have drift issues.
    2. Conduct outreach to growers and pest control advisers about impacts of soil quality, water management, and other conditions that produce specific weed problems and how to avoid them via cultural practices.
    3. Educate growers and pest control advisers on how to reduce and manage glyphosate-resistant weeds (especially ryegrass, fleabane, and sunflower).” (p. 17).

    “Southern Region Critical Needs for Weeds

    Research

    1. Develop effective alternatives to glyphosate, especially those that are systemically translocated.
    2. Enhance cultivation methods for removing weeds, such as via finger and torsion weeders or robotic technology.
    3. Increase efforts to find effective biological control agents for weeds (e.g., research the effectiveness of the herbivorous mite that attacks Russian thistle).

    Regulatory

    1. Register any effective and viable alternatives to glyphosate, especially systemically translocated herbicides.

    Education

    1. Educate growers on whether or how natural enemies can be used to manage Russian thistle and other relevant weeds.” (p. 17).

    Weeds come up frequently in other areas of the PMSP, especially in relation to insect pest management.

    You can also find descriptions of common weed problems on page 45 and weed management practices are included in the Farming and IPM Practices section starting on page 58. There is a weed occurrence table on page 75 in Appendix I, and efficacy tables for herbicides and nonchemical management starting on page 93 in Appendix II.

    Martin, T., C. Swett, A. Vinchesi-Vahl, and S. Parreira. 2021. Pest Management Strategic Plan for California Processing Tomato Production. https://ipmdata.ipmcenters.org/documents/pmsps/2021_07_22_Processing_Tomato_PMSP_final.pdf

  • Potato Breeding Research Grant Opportunity

    The USDA Potato Breeding Research grant program supports potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) research and Extension programs that focus on varietal development and testing to create improved potato varieties for commercial production using conventional breeding and/or biotechnological genetics. Application deadline is May 18. For more information, read the Potato Breeding Research program funding opportunity.

  • Hass Avocado Board Introduces ‘BOLD’ New Class of Avocado Industry Leaders

    A new generation of leaders has graduated from the Hass Avocado Board (HAB) Board Leadership Development (BOLD) program with specialized training and real-world experience that ensures a stronger future for the industry. The robust, year-long program exposes emerging leaders from across the supply chain to experts and resources essential to forming a well-rounded understanding of the business and being considered board-ready. Newly added experiential learning opportunities, like the two-day, in-person briefing with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in D.C., exemplify how the program immerses participants into the complexities as well as opportunities to take the industry forward.

    “With the avocado industry booming at more than $7 billion in retail dollars, there is constant, dynamic change that requires leaders to have a big picture overview of all the relevant market forces influencing growth,” said John McGuigan, Director of Industry Affairs for the Hass Avocado Board. “The rising stars of BOLD Class 2 graduate with greater strategic vision, a stronger professional network and overall, more excitement and confidence to lead by serving on a board.”

    As supply strives to keep pace with avocado’s growing popularity, the strategic evolution of instruction and expansion of influential guest speakers is becoming one of the BOLD program’s signature qualities. The 2022-2023 curriculum kept its foundational deep dive into the rules of governance and financial and fiduciary responsibilities of board members at the University of California, Davis and added a trip to Washington D.C. to meet with USDA leadership. Through hands-on meetings with industry veterans, expert HAB staff and mentors with avocado board experience, participants take away from the program fresh insights and a broader perspective of what board service entails.

    Energized by their success in the program and ready to contribute more deeply within the avocado industry are the following graduates of BOLD Class 2:

    • Casey Evans Beltran, Producer/Importer, La Bonanza Avocados
    • Maureen Cottingham, Producer, Camlam Farms, Inc.
    • Caitlin Cunha, Producer/Importer, Del Rey Avocado
    • Hillary DeCarl, Producer/Importer, Del Rey Avocado
    • Elizabeth Flores, Producer/Importer, Mission Produce
    • Gwen Jackimek, Producer/Importer, Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A. Inc.
    • Osvaldo Magaña, Producer, Limoneira Company
    • Carlos Ignacio Valerio Medel, Producer, Fruitval S.A. de C.V.
    • Jeff Onstot, Producer/Importer, Westfalia Fruit Marketing USA
    • Jose Daniel Pardo, Producer/Importer, Westfalia Fruit Marketing USA
    • John Patrick, Producer/Importer, Eco Farms
    • LeighAnne Thomsen, Importer, Calavo Growers

    As the first and only professional development initiative for the Hass avocado industry, BOLD inspires fresh thinking and provides participants with a network of connections and resources to facilitate innovation, thought leadership and effective problem-solving.

    As Class 2 continues on their journey to make a difference in the industry, BOLD will welcome Class 3 in April. To learn more about the program and the benefits to the avocado industry, visit HassAvocadoBoard.com/bold-program.

    About The Hass Avocado Board

    The Hass Avocado Board (HAB) exists to help make avocados America’s most popular fruit. HAB is the only avocado organization that equips the entire global industry for success by collecting, focusing, and distributing investments to maintain and expand demand for avocados in the United States. HAB provides the industry with consolidated supply and market data, conducts nutrition research, educates health professionals, and brings people together from all corners of the industry to collectively work towards growth that benefits everyone. The organization also collects and reallocates funds to California and importer associations to benefit specific countries of origin in promoting their avocado brands to customers and consumers across the United States.

  • Blueberry Council Receives Foreign Registration in China

    The U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) recently received approval from the Chinese government for its registration as a Foreign Nongovernmental Organization (FNGO).

    When USHBC initially launched its China program, we immediately began seeking this registration to comply with the “Law on Administration of Activities of Overseas Nongovernmental Organizations in the Mainland of China,” which was implemented by the Chinese government in 2017. USHBC’s registration approval comes after working with the U.S. State Department, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington, D.C., and the Shanghai Public Security Bureau for more than a year-and-a-half to authenticate and submit all necessary documentation.

    By completing its FNGO registration, USHBC is now officially approved to conduct marketing activities in China. This milestone is an important step in USHBC’s China program development, and will allow us to ramp up promotional activities in the country. USHBC is excited about this next step in its China program and seeing how the market continues to develop for the industry. — U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council

  • Hass Avocado Board’s 2022 Year in Review

    Hass Avocado Board — The U.S. avocado industry faced several challenges in 2022, which kept markets, and marketers facing challenges with their customers and with consumers, that had not been seen in recent years. Despite increasing shipments from every source of supply, except one, the industry actually went backwards on supply directed to the U.S. market, and the ensuing shortage increased the pricing structure of the market in ways not seen in many years. In the end, producers certainly profited from the shortage of fruit, as grower returns were at the highest levels in history and were certainly a benefit to the producers, we all rely on. But the increased wholesale prices sent retail and foodservice prices into the stratosphere, and those pricing levels had impacts, both during the shortage, and subsequent to it. Let’s dig into the numbers.

    The big picture number, total volume in the U.S. dropped by almost 6% for 2022, compared to the volumes shipped in 2021.  Volume for the year came in at 2.677 billion pounds, compared to the historical mark hit in 2021 of 2.835 billion pounds. This shortage of volume was identified in early 2022 in the second half of the Mexican crop cycle that runs from July through June, and the recognition of the shortage sent markets skyrocketing in the early part of the year, and the pricing frenzy was on, and producers in all countries of origin scrambled to get fruit into this market. As stated above, every country of origin, with the exception of Mexico had higher volumes in 2022 vs 2021, California up almost 6%, Chile up almost 80% from the previous short year, Peru up 46% for its highest shipment total to the U.S ever at 276 million pounds. And the newest player Colombia showed the largest percentage increase at over a 450% increase from 6.6 million to 36.8 million pounds in 2022. The Mexico shortage, coming on the heels of its largest crop ever in 2021, while not a total surprise caught many off guard. Mexico shipments were down, despite the fact that Jalisco was finally granted access to the U.S. marketplace by over 12%, from 2.378 billion pounds to 2.079 billion pounds, sending the market into the high price, lower volume scenario.

    The subsequent increase at retail shelf pricing was the result, as consumers faced an average increased fruit price at retail from $1.11 in 2021 to $1.30 in 2022 – an increase of 16.8%. Retail margins shrank, foodservice operators and distributors struggled to keep pricing in restaurants stable, and the market saw wholesale prices on 25 lb. boxes of fruit it had not seen in many seasons.

    All this in a market that was still shaking off the lingering effects of COVID, and the beginnings of inflation started to be felt by consumers, not just in avocado or food pricing, but across the board in most consumer goods. The whole industry felt the impact, some good for producers, and some bad for importers, sellers, and distributors. The industry made its way through the situation, but the market, and the increased retail shelf pricing was felt long after the new crops came on, and the slower velocity at retail was certainly impacted for longer than the shortage.

    This lower total volume backed per capita consumption backwards for the year, going from 8.6 PPC in 2021, down to 8.0 PCC in 2022. 

    These will certainly be the events that will be remembered for 2022. Not the increased visibility and emphasis on Sustainability. Not the increasing body of work we have in the nutrition space, and not the growing supply from the other countries outside of Mexico. No, it will be remembered as the “short year”, and all produce commodities have to deal with what Mother Nature gives us and play the market accordingly. But we will see what 2023 will bring, and keep our eye on the consumer, and see if we can put more volume through a system this industry has cultivated for the last 20 year.