US will soon get more avocados from Mexico, and it may help lower prices

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The price for avocados has soared this year to over $2 per fruit, but that may soon change.

For the past 25 years, all avocados from Mexico came from the region of Michoacán - which has been the only Mexican state authorized to send the green fruit to the U.S. market.

Now, U.S. consumers will finally get the chance to try avocados from Jalisco.

Growers and packers in Jalisco, which is located just northwest of Michoacán, expressed hope that their state can provide more consistent production levels and stability for prices for avocados, which have fluctuated widely amid seasonal supply shortages.

Eleven trucks bearing 200 tons of avocados from Jalisco lined up Thursday in the mountain town of Zapotlan El Grande to set out for the U.S.

"When we were talking about very high prices a month ago, it was because the market wasn't getting enough supply," said Javier Medina Villanueva, president of the Jalisco Avocado Export Association. "So we believe that the entry of Jalisco will close that supply shortage. ... I think prices will stabilize."

Consumers in the United States won't immediately recognize the difference: Jalisco avocados won't bear any special tag, and will be labelled simply as "avocados from Mexico" - a phrase promoted for years by producers in Michoacán.

The head of the Michoacán-based Association of Mexican Avocado Growers and Packers, Jose Luis Gallardo, said he doesn't see Jalisco, or any of the other Mexican states now clamoring for U.S. export certification, as competition.

"Today is a day of joy for everyone, knowing that Jalisco is here, but it is going to be happier when the State of Mexico comes, when Nayarit, Colima, Puebla, Morelos come," Gallardo said of the other states, noting there was room for more exports; last season's production in Michoacán was down by about 200,000 tons.

Mexico currently supplies about 92% of U.S. imports of the fruit, and Mexico's agriculture department says it is working to get more states certified. About a half dozen states grow significant quantities of the fruit, which prefers higher altitudes and cooler climates in Mexico.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.