Avocados are as American as apple pie at this point: We eat an estimated 185 million pounds of them on Super Bowl Sunday alone, according to expert estimates. And if you’ve paid a particularly high price for avocados lately, you’re not the only one.
A significant avocado shortage drove prices upward this summer, according to The Street. This is likely due to a mixed-up Mexican harvest season that left suppliers with fewer avocados than usual. (Don’t panic just yet, though: Things should be turning around right about now.)
Mexico grows avocados year-round: One season usually ends in June, and another starts up in July, The Street explains. But this year, the June harvest was abnormally low. What’s more, a heat wave ruined much of California’s avocado crop just before the Fourth of July holiday, the Los Angeles Times reports. The California crop was also famously threatened by drought last year.
Add it all up, and this explains why you may have paid more for your avo grilled cheese fixings this summer.
Indeed, the Hass Avocado Board shows a jump in retail value from 93 cents per avocado in May to more than a dollar per avocado by mid-June, Eater points out. As dismal as this may sound, there’s no need to go stealing avocados anytime soon: Prices have stabilized over the last two weeks or so, as Robb Bertels, Mission Produce Vice President of Marketing, told The Street.
Thank goodness, ‘cuz we need to make some avocado toast ASAP.
