East Coast and Midwest shoppers, curious about avocados, found only flavourless, hard-as-baseball fruit that, when sliced, didn't look or smell anything like what they'd tried at a Mexican restaurant. These days, the fruit can be found ripe throughout the country, year-round.Avocado consumption in the U.S. has skyrocketed, says Emiliano Escobedo , executive director of the Irvine, California-based Hass Avocado Board, growing about 1200 percent since the start of the millennium 14 years ago. Last year, more than 3.3 billion avocados were consumed in the United States, which works out to about 10 per person.
USDA statistics show 38,676 metric tons of avocados were imported from Mexico in 2004 , for a value of $59.9 million .
In only the first five months of this year, 258,430 metric tons came in from Mexico, for a value of $567.8 million.
"It keeps on growing and growing at double-digit growth," Escobedo said. "The growth in the demand in the United States has been consistent."
One of the key reasons for the soaring popularity was the 2005 end of restricting imports from Mexico, something growers in California -- by far the largest U.S. region for avocado production -- feared. Previously, Mexican avocados were only allowed in some states on the East Coast. That changed once Mexican growers were able to demonstrate that their product could be exported with no threat of spreading pests to U.S. groves.
With availability came affordability for inland U.S. consumers, who were getting more exposure to Mexican food because of the nation's growing Latino population.
As avocado sales grew, so did the budget for advertising, thanks to a government-mandated program that assesses producers a 2.5 cent s per-pound fee for marketing.
The industry also has poured funding into research on the nutritional benefits of the fruit, and has touted it as nutrient-dense, with more than 20 vitamins and minerals.
"There's been a change in perception," Escobedo said. "Even 10 years ago, a lot of consumers thought avocados were fattening. That's changing. . . (The message has been) that it's a 'good fat.' And a lot of that has been the result of our work."
Almost all the Mexican avocados come from the state of Michoacán, and the majority comes in through Texas ports at Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley.
In 2011, there were 16,391 truckloads of avocados coming through Texas. In 2013, there were 26,200.
