AU: Bumper avocado harvest will see 60% jump in national volume
The summer harvest has begun for growers in Western Australia and New Zealand with bumper crops in both regions.
An influx of avocados in the past two weeks has increased Australia's average volume by 60 per cent, from about 200,000 trays to 334,000 trays.
Jennie Franceschi, the Managing Director of the Avocado Export Company and Advanced Packing and Marketing Services, based in Western Australia's south west, says Australia will likely see volumes remain at that level of 60 per cent above average for the next 10 weeks.
"We're just reaching a point where we've had a couple of really big volume weeks," Ms Franceschi said. "So to manage that, it needs to be really coordinated and we all need to talk."
Ms Franceschi said an oversupply of avocados could lead to a backlog of fruit, which could impact quality and cause consumers to turn off buying avocados, so the industry will need to attempt to streamline national supply.
West Australian avocado growers produce about four million trays of avocados each year and Pemberton grower George Ipsen says the industry is growing rapidly, with volume of fruit set to double in the next few years, which could cause issues for growers.
He says the local industry will need to 'push out' New Zealand product to deal with the increasing volumes of fruit from Australia. But he also said that the suppressed price could also lead to increased consumption, which could be positive for the industry.
Source: abc.net.au
