By Midge Munro – Group Communications and Marketing Manager, Darling Group.
Contracting economies, oversupply, and climate change were among the global challenges for the avocado industry presented to over 1100 delegates at the 10th World Avocado Congress held in Auckland last month. Ways to mitigate these challenges were discussed over the three days of academic sessions under the theme of “Respectful; respect for people, respect for the environment, respect for our future.”
Katikati-based horticulture business and Kiwi Gold sponsor for the congress, Darling Group, also sponsored the keynote speaker session on sustainability, a key topic presented on throughout the congress and heavily related to the congress theme. Andrew Darling, Managing Director of Darling Group said the session was dedicated to sharing the impacting forces the world is facing and exploring what action in this space looks like.
“We heard from Lain Jager about political friction, higher costs of production, and less economic growth and from Florence Van Dyke [NZTE] that we are using the planet’s resources at 1.7 times the rate they can be replenished.”
Hard hitting keynote presentations painted a confronting picture for delegates who had the previous day heard from Eric Imbert of CIRAD (France) that global avocado supply has already surpassed demand and that this will continue to accumulate through to 2028 before coming closer in alignment again. In addition, the total value of the avocado market globally was increasing at a slowing rate.
“When I think about sustainability, I think of the environment yes but also for me running a business that includes working with many other avocado growers it’s about sustainability of profits for all of us and the sustainability of operating in this industry.”
The volatility of markets has been experienced by New Zealand avocado growers in the 2022-23 season where Australia, a traditionally high paying market was oversupplied and underdelivered on value for growers.
Among the possible solutions to the global issues facing avocados was a strong emphasis on building demand ahead of supply. China was highlighted as a market that is just waking up to avocados with a target segment of the population of 100m people that have a good to high income.
“We saw that Mexico has an annual per capita consumption of 10kg followed by USA and Australia who are up around 4kg, Asia is less than 1kg but it is increasing and there is a huge market there to capture in China.”
As shared last month, Darling Group has embarked on a project supported by NZTE to define their strategy for avocados into the China market.
“China is where we see our future growth coming from. Australia has been oversupplied the past two seasons and that is a situation that will not be getting better.”
The World Avocado Congress gave the Darling Group team much to reflect on in the areas of productivity, quality, sustainability, and demand creation.
“Over the three days of academic sessions, our team engaged with nearly all the presentations of which there were 130. We are now looking at how we progress some of the learnings into actions. A lot of the key points we will look to discuss further have to do with sustainability – and that’s from both the environmental and value returned perspectives.”
Thoughts presented during the congress were united that the key to addressing sustainability issues in the avocado industry was a concerted effort from all stakeholders.
“The good news is we, collectively as a business and as a global industry, have the expertise and the opportunity to do something about these challenges together.”