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The summer ended with prices falling on the European avocado market, like the two previous summers. This is due to production levels, which greatly exceed demand.
The fears are confirmed. Even if they like avocado more and more, European consumers do not have the capacity to absorb the volumes put on the market, in particular Peru which now supplies 70% of the European market. For the third summer in a row, prices have fallen. They fell in June and July when the harvests of two major Peruvian producing regions overlap.
The price of a four-kilogram box rose from twelve euros on average to eight euros fifty this summer. Last winter, prices also reached their lowest level in ten years. This is due to the increase in production from Chile, Colombia, Mexico, but also from Israel, Spain and Morocco.
A very strong demand
And yet the bottom of the market is excellent, explains Eric Imbert, researcher at the Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD). Over the past ten years on a global scale, the avocado market has had the good fortune to experience double-digit growth, i.e. around 12% per year, while the trade in other fruits has only progressed by around 2% .
But this is not enough because the producers plant too much. Especially in the state of Michoacan in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. ” They don’t realize what’s going on “Laments our interlocutor. The increase in surface areas worldwide is more than 23,000 hectares over the last campaign, according to the economic study unit Fruitrop.
The fear is that the decrease in volumes, expected this winter, which will inevitably push up prices, gives a very bad signal to producers, who could be tempted to produce even more. ” The rise in prices will only be an artifact that will not change the clear trend of surplus harvests “, insists the economist.
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Consume more to raise prices
As long as producers do not realize that we have to slow down, there is only one solution to find a good price level: invest in promotion to convince European consumers that they still need to eat more avocados !
The United States is a model in terms of promotion. They release each year – via their organization “Hass avocado board” – 80 million euros to communicate around the benefits of the green fruit, while in Europe the budget allocated to the promotion of the avocado is around two to three million. euros, for a much higher number of potential consumers. As a result, American consumption is now an average of four kilograms per person per year, compared to one and a half kilograms in Europe.