Avocado harvesting and export operations in Michoacán, Mexico, are scheduled to resume approvals on Thursday, Nov. 5, ending a multi-week shutdown that severely curtailed U.S. avocado inventories and drove sourcing costs past pre-stoppage levels, according to reporting by the International Business Times.
The harvest disruption originated amid industry reports that Mexican authorities and growers had destroyed over 50 tons of avocados following seed weevil detections. However, industry executives have urged perspective regarding market speculation during the shutdown.
“First of all, what I would like to say is there’s a lot of rumors,” says Pedro Somarriba, president of AvoWorks. “I mean, while that’s what’s been out there, I’m not sure that that’s exactly what happened. So, have to take everything with a grain of salt.”
Somarriba points out that the prolonged harvest freeze also intersected with economic pressures among producers.
“We’ve not been allowed to harvest any fruit, and there’s a concerted effort by growers to drive up pricing,” Somarriba says. “They’ve been complaining that pricing has not been enough to be able to cover the cost.”
Addressing the biological characteristics of the pest, Somarriba notes that the seed weevil is in its larva stage during late fall, allowing field crews to spot issues before the insect fully matures into a worm in January and February. Because the pest “gets carried from orchard to orchard,” AvoWorks maintains a rigorous screening workflow starting in the groves.
“Our first line of defense is, of course, the people that are out there harvesting the fruit that go to visit the farms, and we ask them to inspect the farm as well as they can to make sure that this is identified,” Somarriba says.
When shipments reach processing facilities, mandatory testing provides a second layer of defense.
“The fruit is actually cut up to make sure not only that it is not in the fruit itself, in the meat part of it, but also in the bone,” Somarriba says, describing the random sampling protocol used to safeguard product quality.
Somarriba emphasizes that multi-facility infrastructure is vital when isolated pest issues arise at individual facilities.
“Let’s say that one packing house identifies the worm, and that immediately means that it gets shut down probably for a one-week period,” Somarriba says. “If we only have one packing house, that means we’re out of business for that week. The fact that we have three of them means that we have redundancy ... We don’t stop. The only thing that can stop us is what’s happened the last two weeks, where no one is allowed to cut fruit from the field.”
Despite field testing protocols, the total industry-wide freeze on orchard picking created severe strain across the North American supply chain, driving available avocado inventories past critically low levels. As reported by the International Business Times, Local Plant Health Boards (Sanidad Vegetal) and industry organizations in Michoacán finalized an agreement to restart harvesting approvals and export operations on Nov. 5.
Trade analysts warn that restarting harvest approvals will not instantly resolve retail shortages or elevated prices across U.S. markets. Sourcing costs have more than doubled since the field shutdown began, and FOB (Free On Board) pricing is expected to remain well above pre-stoppage levels as picking, packing and border transportation gradually recover full capacity.
