“The avocado is tasty, healthy and trendy, but not without challenges,” said Jelger de Vriend, Director of Normec Foodcare, when opening the Mini Symposium Avocado his company had organised. He mentioned that avocados are in the top five most complained about products by consumers because they are disappointed with the quality of the fruits. Jelger called it a challenge and task to provide better quality.
Popularity
The first speaker at the Mini Symposium was Ludo Tuijnman of Maas Fruit Quality Inspection and responsible for the training of quality control professionals at Normec Foodcare. Het addressed the avocado supply chain. Ludo observed that during the last 20 years the focus in several fruits, including avocados, has increasingly shifted towards the ready-to-eat variant. And with that the avocado became bigger and bigger; the popularity of the fruit during some periods of the year even overtaking the popularity of bananas. With the increasing sales, the importance of responding to consumers’ needs also increased. In short: consumers want ripe avocados, available in the supermarket. There are many factors that can influence the quality and ripeness of the avocado. Ludo addressed several and particularly stressed the importance of the dry matter content and the absence of bitterness as those aspects play an important role in the ripening and colouring of the avocados and therefore in delivering the consumer the desired ready-to-eat fruit.
Story
Next up was Peter van der Veeken from Normec Foodcare with an appeal to tell the story of the avocado. He sees that the product is very versatile but a difficult product that comes with a manual. And that makes it important to tell the story of how the avocado is grown, harvested, sorted, transported, stored and ripened. “Why would we spend all the effort and money on this beautiful and tasty product throughout the chain and then once the product reaches the shop where it will be sold to the consumer, we do almost nothing and leave it up to the consumer.” For Peter the avocado story is a very important story to tell, everywhere throughout the chain but particularly at the end; to the people selling the fruits and those buying them. “If you love the avocado, it will love you back.”
Quality
Karin Gorree, also of Normec Foodcare, spoke about the consumer and their expectations and shared some confronting figures. First she stressed the importance of meeting the consumers’ expectations because there is quite some growth potential as only 40 percent of the Dutch consumers eat avocado at an average of 12 pieces a year. Therefore it is important to know what is important for consumers. Karin told us quality is the most important aspect even before price. One of the factors that define quality is taste which is delivered by ripeness. Yet not all avocados that are presented as ready-to- eat, actually are ready-to-eat. Karin found that on average 19 – almost one in five - percent of the avocados is not ready-to-eat. On the bright side, she mentioned that this percentage already has come down from 2017 when one in four avocados was found not-ready-to eat in a survey. Karin challenged the audience to bring down the percentage of avocados that are not ready-to-eat to 10 percent in three years’ time. “For that the whole – very long – supply chain should work together.”
Delivering more wow
It also what the last speaker, Jelger de Vriend, called for: better and more consistent ripeness of the avocado on the shelves. And that, in his view, is all about actively controlling and reducing variability. Data and cooperation throughout the chain are helpful with that and another way to do that is by optimising the cool chain. Jelger explained that if you looked at avocados in the same way as, say, soft fruits, the fruit could be refrigerated to optimize preservation and meet consumer expectations. If, instead of at ambient temperatures, the avocados would be stored in a cold display of 7̊ºC that would allow for 2,5 times longer shelf life. With storage at 2º C that even becomes 3,6 times, Jelger said. He thinks this knowledge will be beneficial to all avocado outlets, whether the rotation of the products is low or high, but those with a low rotation will be able to benefit even more. To be able to deliver ripe avocados that surpass the consumers’ expectations, is what Jelger calls: delivering wow. “If we can deliver more wow, consumption will increase.”
For more information:
Jelger de Vriend
Normec Foodcare
Tel: +31-6-2479-5091
jelger.de.vriend@normecgroup.com
www.NormecFoodcare.com/agf