Canada and the United States get 80 percent or more of their avocados from one region in Mexico. For the past couple of weeks, the U.S. has banned imports of those avocados after an American agricultural products inspector working in Mexico received a threatening phone call…
Guacamole Autentico: The real deal. beloved far and wide.
But a shortage won’t mean the end of the world…
Not that there’s something wrong with the avocados this season, and they haven’t been getting cleared for export to the U.S. Quite the opposite.
Mexican President President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reports Monday that there are some folks who don’t want Mexican avocados to enter the United States, for economic and political reasons. That appears to be a Mexican domestic issue, and one that hasn’t been adequately explained in any of the media I’ve consumed this week. But avocado lovers in the U.S. are already feeling a pinch, both in higher prices and reduced availability.
Double whammy
In concert with the political issues in Mexico, increased demand in the U.S. for Avocados over the past few years has made the prospect of any shortage even darker.
Per capita consumption of avocados more than doubled from 4 pounds to 9 pounds 2010-2020. And industry observers say that figure could surpass 11 pounds per person by 2026. If, that is, there enough avocados to fill the demand.
Cali won’t likely race to the rescue
California currently provides only about 16 percent of avocados consumed in the U.S. According to Pennington Seed, a major provider of tropical and sub-tropical plant seeds, it can take 3-4 years for a new avocado seedling to grow to a decent size and start producing. If you plant from seed, it can take 12-13 years. And, if you want to optimize fruit yield, you need to arrange for male and female trees to be One would assume the Mexicans could get their political and economic issues ironed out way before then. So don’t go looking for any headlong rush by opportunistic California farmers to plant gazillions of new avocado trees.
The little guy gets short shrift
Small regional restaurant chains and one-offs, along with non-chain grocery stores will be hit hardest by the avocado shortage. And some operators in those retailing subgroups, who don’t have the volume buying power or Chipotle’s or Walmart are already feeling the crunch.
Chief Executive Officer Phil Friedman of Salsarita’s Fresh Mexican Grill, a 75-location restaurant chain with outlets sprinkled across the U.S., told Bloomberg Business News this week, “We’ll use what we have. I’m not going to look for any type of alternative, we’re just going to announce to our customers that guacamole is not available until further notice.”
Chipotle’s Chief Restaurant Officer Scott Boatwright told Bloomberg even his 3,000-store operation is not immune to shortages that last longer than a couple of weeks or so. “Our supply chain is hot on the path and working every angle, I assure you.” He confided that his buyers are looking as far afield as Peru for replacement supplies.
Wholesale food depot prices for the avocados that are available have jumped from between $30 and 40 dollars per case of 48 to around $65. And this is just the beginning.
How important are avocados to you?
How essential is your daily Avocado Toast or Guacamole fix? I know I’m not missing them that much. In fact, I haven’t bought a single avocado in weeks – can’t remember the last time I brought one home from the store. I’ll allow that I, personally, am not representative of the mainstream avocado-lover demographic. But I do think that I’m fairly representative of the overall food consumer demographic. And, as such, I can predict that the inconvenience of even a month-long avocado shortage won’t result in an uptick in suicides, much less falling skies.
Why don’t we all just shift focus to unfairly-neglected and grossly underappreciated mangoes or papayas for a while? Papayamole, anyone?
~ Maggie J.