Australia’s love affair with avocado suffers setback as prices soar

Rising demands in between seasons have resulted in avocado shortage and increased prices. Some retailers sell a fruit at about $4. Some Sydney cafes opted to take the fruit off the menu until prices are back to normal. Others have been forced to introduce surcharges.

The country’s love affair with the avocado has suffered a setback amid high consumer demand. Avocado growers say the situation will likely continue into the next month.

Hass avocados are being sold at Coles and Woolworths for $3.90 per pop online. The current price was about a dollar more, compared to what supermarkets were charging one month ago, and up from about $2 per avocado in September.

In the Atherton Tablelands in far north Queensland, shepard avocado producers begin harvesting fruit at the end of January. Production is ramping up in mid-February. The month-long lull is usually filled by hass avocados from the Bay of Plenty region in New Zealand.

Avocados Australia chief executive John Tyas explained that the storms in New Zealand had prevented the usual harvest. The fruit risks infections and rotting when picked while wet.

Tyas said WA is pumping out good volumes. They delivered [a total of] 1000 tonnes to market last week. “But you really need 1500 tonnes a week to meet demand,” he told The New Daily.

It appears it won’t be long until avocado prices return to more normal levels. Tyas said he expects fruit supply to pick up again next month.

The idea of the smashed-avo-on-sourdough generation is backed up by figures published by Avocados Australia, which shows that Australian consumption of the fruit has rocketed in the past two decades. Aussies consumed just over 20,000 tonnes of avocados in 1997-98. They have consumed four times as much in 2017, almost 90,000 tonnes.

The majority or more than three quarters of these fruits are grown locally. Australian growers have almost doubled the output in the past decade, producing 65,992 tonnes of avocados last year. The figure is comparable to 39,394 in 2007-08.

Queensland is known as the largest producer of avocados, producing 69 percent. WA follows with 18 percent. Hass avocados, the dark and knobbly kind, are the most commonly grown.