Calavo expanding avocado packing operations
The addition of the 70,000-square-foot facility—being built on a sizable tract of owned property that affords room for future growth—will substantially increase Calavo’s total annual fresh avocado packing capacity, stated the company, a global avocado industry leader and expanding provider of value-added fresh food.
In conjunction with Calavo’s existing Mexican operations in Uruapan, Michoacán, the new facility—expected to come online by this July—will pack fresh avocados for export to the United States and international destinations, while playing an instrumental role in the company’s ongoing market-share-building initiatives, said Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Lee E. Cole.
Cole said: “We expect that expanding operations into a second growing region—vastly increasing Calavo’s packing capacity—enables us to build upon and extend our fresh avocado market leadership. With domestic avocado consumption expected to exceed two billion pounds this year, the new packing operations in Guzmán are essential to remaining on the forward edge of industry growth and building upon our unrivalled market-leadership position. Beyond this steady rise in U.S. avocado consumption, emerging international markets such as China, other parts of the Asia-Pacific region and Europe, point to the exceptional opportunity in being an early entrant in Ciudad Guzmán, just as Calavo was in Uruapan in the late 1990s.”
Cole added that a number of the growers with whom Calavo already does business in Michoacán also have avocado groves in Jalisco, providing “the company significant competitive advantage as we enter this new region. We fully expect the capital investment to translate into new revenue and profit drivers and will share more about the company’s progress in Ciudad Guzmán as the fiscal year progresses.”