South Africa’s avocado season – export volumes expected to reach 18 million equivalent 4kg cartons, or approximately 72,000 tonnes – is progressing very well. Harvesting in the most northerly regions is winding up and in the central regions the harvest is halfway to two-thirds through.The southerly regions (KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern and Southern Cape) will be holding back on their exports because of the large volumes. In KwaZulu-Natal exports are planned to start in the last week of June, later than last year. It’s predicted that the peak export season could extend to week 30 this year.
The quality is excellent with very clean fruit (a lot better than last year, according to one packhouse manager). Size distribution, particularly on Hass, is very good too, peaking between counts 16 and 22. In fact, a big shortage is reported in the availability of smaller fruit (counts 26 to 32) for supermarket bagging purposes.
In some areas fruit maturity is quite advanced on avocados at packhouses, for a number of reasons: some cultivars, like Pinkerton, flowered very early last year and in response to the volume increase, there has been a planned delay in harvesting. The advanced fruit maturity means that packhouses have to get fruit cooled and packed as quickly as possible, running on 24 hour shifts in some areas.
The hail that struck the Lowveld this past weekend hasn’t had a major impact on avocados. There is some bruising on stems which are treated with disinfectant in the packhouse, while fruit unsuitable for fresh consumption will be sent for guacamole processing.
Two-tier price structure
The Pinkerton harvest is larger than usual this year and this has placed greenskins under more pressure.
“There’s almost a two-tier price structure for greenskins and Hass. Greenskin export prices aren’t a disaster, but it is lower than last year, while Hass prices are still very satisfactory,” says Athol Currie, chairperson of the South African Avocado Growers’ Association. “We’ll have to be very careful in future about how we manage volumes. It’ll all be about good and consistent tonnages and quality. We need to be good at what we do.”
Locally, informal sellers still prefer greenskin avocados, while retailers are increasingly giving precedence to Hass avocados, particularly for ripe-and-ready programmes.
Opening up new markets for South African avocados
Negotiations for entry into the USA are at an advanced stage. The Pest Risk Assessment has been completed and the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is currently in negotiations with the South African agriculture department to work out mitigation strategies to address such risks.
Market access into China, Japan and India are also on the agenda and there is an expectation that once US market access has been finalised (which could be within the next 12 to 18 months), it will pave the way for access to China and other markets in the Far East. He notes that all of these new markets only want Hass avocados.
The South African industry is keen to diversify its export portfolio; it is currently almost entirely dependent on exports to the EU and the UK.
“We also need to look at markets in sub-Saharan Africa for our avocados,” he adds.
"We don't want to build consumer resistance"
There is currently annual avocado expansion of approximately 1,000ha in South Africa, particularly in areas previously not considered ideal for avocados. Much of the new plantings are meant to extend the avocado season for 12 months of the year and to provide specifically the South African market with avocados during their summertime.
Despite fears that avocados could become prohibitively expensive for South African consumers, especially when new markets open up, Athol Currie is of the opinion that 30 to 40% of avocado production will probably always end up on the local market, especially volumes from marginal avocado production areas that don’t have a subtropical climate.
“I think within two years avocado prices locally should start coming down and avocados will become more of an everyday item. At the moment you can pay something like R42 (2.8 euros) for two avocados in September and what we don’t want, is to build consumer resistance to avocados. We will always need to move volumes.”