Peak industry body Avocados Australian has revealed the country’s growers tended to the largest crop on national record over 2015/16.
Avocados Australia’s chief executive John Tyas said the industry produced around 67,000 tonnes of fruit over the recently completed season, up 16 per cent on the 2014/15 campaign.
Tyas said the industry has worked hard to produce and market a premium and healthy offering, with avocados now becoming permanent fixtures in daily food consumption.
“Based on the latest crop forecasts, Australia’s per capita consumption is likely to exceed 3.5kg per person in 2016/17,” Tyas explained. “Our per capita consumption in 2014/15 and 2015/16 was about 3.2kg per person in both years – making Australians some of the largest consumers outside South America in the world.”
Australia exported 1,546 tonnes of avocados in 2015/16, 20 per cent more volume than the previous year. The season-on-season value of these exports was more than 40 per cent higher, aided by a favourable exchange rate.
Early forecasts indicate the 2016/17 harvest will yield similar volumes to that of 2015/16, although the crop out of the key summer production hub in Western Australia appears to be substantially down.
As a consequence, New Zealand is planning to increase its supply to Australia over this coming spring/summer period to help meet the increasing demand. “Hopefully this will ensure Australian households don’t experience the retail price spike we had early this year,” Tyas said.
