"The Peruvian Avocado Commission (PAC) makes its best effort to promote the Peruvian origin with a budget 12 times lower than that of Mexico and achieves great things. However, we are missing two very important ingredients: quality and volume (...) that is, to increase the volume we need to improve our quality and management in the United States, otherwise, it will be very difficult to achieve this."
According to the president of the Peruvian Avocado Commission (PAC), José Antonio Castro Echecopar, his institution is working hard to improve the presence of Peruvian avocado in the United States. In this regard, he announced that their goal for the 2025 campaign is to export 25% of the country's Hass avocado production to the North American market.
"The PAC's original goal is to export 200-220 million pounds of avocado in 2024. Thus, when we talk about exporting 25% of our avocado in 2025 it means we should export some 300 to 350 million pounds. It won't be easy, but last year we had a good campaign," he stated.
"We must aim big. It's a real challenge, but it's achievable... If we don't, we'll only export 170-180 million pounds. This would be detrimental to us because the industry would see no growth and think we don't aspire to grow, so they would leave us aside. We must be able to offer growth and improvement.”
In turn, the executive director of the PAC, Xavier Equihua, said that the 25% goal can be reached because last year the country exported 26% of its offer. In general, he said, 17% of the avocados exported are sent to the United States. This year, however, there was a drop and only 16% reached this destination.
"The important thing is to try to increase the presence of Peruvian avocado in the United States. To achieve this, our avocado must have the best quality because Mexico and California have a good product in summer when our product is in the North American market," he said.
Castro said they needed to improve the percentage of dry matter of the fruit, as well as the fruit's post-harvest management to improve the condition in which the avocado arrives to the US market.
"As exporters, we must choose importers who handle the Peruvian avocado correctly. People who know how to condition the fruit once they take it out from the containers, how to preheat it, ripen it, and then distribute it. (…) We have to ship good quality avocado, arrive with a good quality product, and deliver it to people who know how to handle it," he stated.
Sources: ProHass Informa/ Agraria.pe