2024 Year in Review

As we look back on the 2024 season, some things came into focus that the industry needs to stay aware of as we move into the future.

One, we have now faced five years of relatively flat volumes being sold into the U.S. marketplace, and the “hockey stick” growth that we experienced for the previous 20 years, from 2000 until 2020, is not the growth we have been experiencing this last half-decade.

Second, we have now seen a changing size curve for a number of years, and we need to evaluate, if this is the “new normal” or a short-term weather impact issue that will soon correct itself. Fruit from almost all origins trended smaller than “normal” again for almost all of 2024, as Mexico, California, Colombia, and even Peru, which historically had the largest size curve in our industry, had smaller-than-average fruit to bring to market. Volumes for ’40s & 48s, the retail bread & butter of the industry, dropped by almost 30% during the course of 2024, while small fruit grew by 9.5%, and bags kept their incredible pace of growth by gaining another increase of almost 10% for the year.

What was even more amazing about this incredible change in the size curve of the industry, was that at retail, the average selling price of this smaller size structure was moved with an increased retail unit selling price that went up by 12% from $1.04 in 2023 to $1.16! Sizing down, pricing up – way to go sales teams!

However, this smaller size structure goes back into 2023 as well, and we need to understand if this two-year anomaly of size is a trend or merely two back-to-back seasons impacted by weather-related issues. Only time will give us the answers, but the industry will need to stay focused and have answers for selling a crop that gives us something quite different than our historical past, and again the size curve that has been the one that our traditional retail partners have coveted for the last decade at least – so stay tuned.

So what did the year look like in total, and from a country-by-country perspective – let’s take a look. Overall, volume stagnated flat, going from 2.860 billion pounds in 2023 to 2.878 billion pounds in 2024, an increase of less than 1%. It’s the fifth year in a row that volume has been between 2.588 and 2.878 billion pounds, a streak that many hope to break in 2025 and finally get over the 3-billion-pound mark the industry has had on its radar screen since 2019.

This small change meant that our per capita consumption number did not change much, with a .1 drop from 8.7 to 8.6 PPC.

Individually, here’s what the countries did:

• California finally broke out of the short crop cycle it had been in with a sharp increase of 58% over its 2023 volume of 213 million pounds, with a nice 337 million pounds brought to market.
• Mexico’s shipping volume slightly decreased for the year, to 2.311 billion pounds, down 5% from its 2023 level of 2.435 billion pounds.
• Chile and Peru were both relatively flat for the year, shipping 12M and 137M, respectively, and close to their 2023 shipment levels. The big increase came from our newest country of origin to join the U.S. avocado party, Colombia, which increased its shipment level by more than doubling its 2023 volume from 30M to over 68M pounds for the year—well done, and let’s see where this goes!

Again, all countries of origin showed a further propensity for smaller fruit, and the industry needs to stay attuned to this developing trend. If it is, in fact, a trend, we may need to find new and innovative ways for our retail partners to keep this small fruit moving in ways other than packing it into bags—but we will see, and keep you posted.

As for now, the industry collectively has done a stellar job in keeping the volumes moving, and reaping the rewards of higher pricing back to our producers, a move that we see as very sustainable…….Here’s to a great 2025.