Peru’s avocado exports for the 2020-21 season will be larger than previous projections.
According to the Peruvian Hass Avocado Producers Association (ProHass), Peru expects to export 473,000 tons of Hass avocado in the 2021 season, representing an increase of 29.2 percent compared to the 366,000 tons shipped the previous season, as reported by Gestion.
The president of ProHass, Juan Carlos Paredes Rosales, indicated that this significant growth would be due to two factors: the productive income of new plantations, as well as the higher productive yields of young trees.
The figure is slightly higher than the association’s forecast of 460,000 tons in May, and even higher than the USDA projection of 450,000 tons released in early March.
Paredes said Europe will continue to be the main destination, where it is planned to ship between 320,000 to 350,000 tons.
Peru intended to ship 100,000 tons to the U.S., reflecting an increase of 20 percent compared to last season, due to local supplies being lower. California’s supply is 20 percent lower this year. Peru currently supplies 30 percent of the avocado the reached the U.S.
“The avocado campaign on the Peruvian coast this year has been delayed; there has been a delay for the fruit to obtain the adequate percentage of dry matter (in Lambayeque and La Libertad), in addition the sizes are larger, which does not help this. This is because the
U.S. market requests a very specific size ( 48s); this could lead to the decision to send more Hass avocado to other markets such as Chile that demand a lot of this fruit,” Paredes said.
