“Colombia rising as avocado supplier”

The avocado market is currently dealing with shortages. “The Chilean season is ending, and the first fruit is available from Peru, but larger volumes will not start arriving until week 14. Until then, ends will have to be met somehow, because no one really has large volumes of avocados available, and definitely not in popular sizes 14-20,” says product manager Nico Spruijt from Yex.

“Because of that, prices are at a high level. Hard avocados are selling at 14-15 euro, and ready-to-eat avocados are even 1.50 to 2 euro more expensive. I do expect the market to stabilise somewhat when Peru starts sending larger volumes,” Nico says. “The first fruit from Peru comes from the mountains, and has an excellent dry matter content, but volumes are limited. Chile will leave the market in the coming weeks, and will not be back on the market until August.”

In the meantime, gaps are now being filled with avocados from Colombia, Israel and Spain according to the importer, and especially Colombia has experienced a significant development in recent years. “Quality of the avocados was always a bit questionable, but they are getting better at that all the time. In this, they already bypassed Mexico,” Nico explains.

And that is good for the market situation, according to Nico. “It would not be a bad thing if countries such as Chile and Peru would get some more competition from other countries. Despite the larger volume planted globally, the market absorbs the avocados well. Germany especially always wants large volumes. A favourable development is that increasing demand for packed avocados also results in smoother sales of small sizes. In the end, you need to somehow sell all of the avocados coming from the fields, in order to support cultivators as much as possible.”