Sharwil avocados from Hawaii will be arriving to northern U.S. states and Canada in November, and the season continues to March.
After being prohibited for years because of concerns over fruit flies, the sharwil avocados were approved for shipment to northern tier states about three years ago, said David Cox, owner of Kane Plantation Avocados, Honaunau, Hawaii.
The variety is grown on the Big Island of Hawaii. Cox describes the sharwil as a greenskin fruit that doesn’t turn black when ripe, has a high oil content and is larger than the hass variety.
The variety was developed in Australia during the mid-1950s and it became the main commercial avocado grown in Hawaii in the early 1970s.
“We are allowed to ship from November to March just to the northern tier states,” Cox said.
The growing, harvesting and packing of the avocados are monitored for fruit flies, he said.
Local demand for fruit in Hawaii has suffered because of he decline in tourism, Cox said.
With tourism accounting for about 80% of the state’s economy, local demand for avocados has been diminished sharply by the closure of restaurants and hotels. That makes the U.S. and Canadian market more important than ever, Cox said. The state government will start opening up Hawaii for tourism about Oct. 15, with a requirement that visitors are required to have a COVID test within 72 hours of getting on a plane or have a two-week quarantine.
Mainland the main thing
Cox said Hawaii grower-shippers are focused on the U.S. market for the premium sharwil variety, which is well received by chefs and foodservice operators.
“We have a lot of good produce and people on the mainland still need to eat,” Cox said.
The variety is shipped by air to Seattle and other markets. Prices in Seattle are in the $70s for a 25-pound carton, compared to $25 per 25-pound carton prices for Mexican hass avocados recently, he said.
(The U.S. market) is a really big, big, deal for Hawaii farmers because it’s opened up our market to the mainland where we get much, much better prices than we can get locally,” he said.
Major markets for Kane Plantation are Seattle and Vancouver.
Kane Plantation is the only packinghouse certified to send to the U.S., and the firm sends both conventional and organic fruit. Expected shipments to the U.S. in 2020-21 si 100,000-120,000 pounds.
“It looks like we have a fairly good crop this year,” he said.
Because of the high expense of transporting inputs like fertilizer to Hawaii, Cox said many growers follow organic growing practices, even if they are not certified by the USDA.
