Israel’s 2022-2023 avocado season, has seen lower volumes with an estimated 70 000 tons up to now, compared to over 100 000 tons at the same time last year. “It's been a challenging season to supply our clients with all they demand. We didn't have enough fruits and in some parts of the season the sizing was also a bit smaller than average,” said Yonatan Meron, Export Manager of Granot Fresh from Israel, who are growers, packers and exporters of avocados.
Granot Fresh markets the TADA brand ready to eat avocados.
The tons harvested and exported up until now are about -42% lower than the same time last year. “The volume from Israel is going down. We're just 3-4 weeks before the Israeli season will end. The Quality of Granot fruits has been satisfying. There’s always a place to improve but we're feeling a lot of confidence in our product and we're getting good feedback from our clients that consistently prefer our fruits than other suppliers.”
Meron says the smaller sizes and lower volumes are caused by many factors, mainly the weather and its effect, even before the season started. “Smaller sizes are affected due to many reasons and every season has it's own phenomenon’s. We think that because the low temperature during the first flowering last spring, many flowers from the first wave didn't survive, and they are normally the bigger fruits.”
Due to the ongoing protests in Israel over the government’s plans to limit the power of the judiciary, the Israeli currency, the Shekel, weakened enough to make the exports more profitable. “Prices were better than last year and it helped compensate for the low yields. The currency rates between the Shekel and the Euro/Dollar also helps a lot,” says Meron.
While the Israeli avocado season is going into the last stretch over the next four weeks, Meron and other growers are already preparing for next season. “We're starting to prepare our plantation for next season. By now the trees are looking good and seems there is a good potential for next season, but we still have a long way to go and a few months with Israeli spring which is not a stable whether as we know.”
For more information:
Yonatan Meron
Granot Fresh
Tel: +972 52 6808805
Email: yonatanm@granotfresh.com
www.granotfresh.com