Yes, Avocado Is Everywhere. Here’s Why
by Micheline Maynard April 15, 2015 0 comments
Spring is here, and so are avocados.
Far beyond their most recognizable use in guacamole, avocados are popping up in high-end restaurants, and on fast food menus. They’re turned into a topping for avocado toast, a salad staple and an addition to burgers.
In short, avocado is everywhere, and I wondered why.
My curiosity was piqued when I got an email from Potbelly Sandwich Shop, telling me I could order fresh-cut avocado on their menu items.
Avocados also have been on the menu at Subway. (Its 2013 commercial featuring avocados remains one of my favorites.)
I often take people to the Al-Ameer restaurant in Dearborn, Mich., and introduce them to their lovely green avocado and honey smoothie. About half of my friends love it. The others switch to something else.
The avocado now ranks as America’s favorite fruit, above berries, bananas and apples. Yes, it’s a stone fruit.
Americans ate 4.25 billion avocados in 2014, more than double the number devoured in 2005, and four times as many as were sold in 2000, according to the Washington Post.
According to the Post, Los Angeles ranks as the No. 1 consumer of avocados, in part because California dominates avocado production in the United States. It and Mexico vie for the position as the world’s biggest avocado producers.
But avocado is also a big seller in New York, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston and Columbus, while plenty are consumed in smaller cities such as Roanoke and Raleigh, according to the Haas Avocado Board, which represents growers of the Haas variety. The average avocado selling for $1 in a supermarket goes for about 33 cents at wholesale.
Why all this avocado? The Atlantic took the seminal look at the rise of the green fruit in January. Its shift from luxury product to countertop staple is actually the result of a years-long public relations campaign by the firm Hill and Knowlton.
Here are some interesting avocado findings from that story.
• The average American now consumes five pounds of avocados a year. In the 1990s, that same American ate 1.5 pounds annually.
• About 97 of Latino shoppers regularly purchase avocados, while 49 percent of the general population does.
• Guacamole became associated with the Super Bowl in the early 1990s as part of the avocado visibility campaign. Now, Americans consume 80 million pounds of avocados just on Super Bowl Sunday.
• To counteract the perception that avocados were fattening, the California Avocado Commission formed a Nutrition Advisory Committee in the late 1980s. The tide turned with a series of ads featuring actress Angie Dickinson, eating an avocado while wearing a white leotard and gold stilettos.
I can vouch for avocado’s spreading (no pun intended) influence. As a child, I avoided avocado whenever possible. But as an adult, I’m buying them by the bagful.
Hail, then, avocado. And give that smoothie a try, the next time you’re in Dearborn.
Follow me on Twitter @mickimaynard
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Originally published at businessjournalism.org on April 15, 2015.
