The National Mango Board celebrated its 20-year anniversary during the recent International Fresh Produce Association Global Produce and Floral Show in October.
Over those two decades, mango demand by U.S. consumers has grown considerably and the complex mango supply chain has united, according to NMB Executive Director Ramón Ojeda. But those successes haven’t come by waving magic wands, he adds.
“It’s not an easy task, because you got to get people together under one vision and then row in one direction,” Ojeda tells The Packer, reflecting on NMB’s history. “That’s what these folks did 20 years ago. It’s been 20 years of hard work and dedication of over 90 board members along the way who have lent their time and talents to get us to where we are.”
Mangoes by the Numbers
According to USDA records, 20 years ago, just under 2 pounds of mango was available per person in the U.S. For context, that’s roughly where papaya is today.
“If you look 20 years ago, we weren’t even on the radar,” Ojeda says. “For example, today we ranked No. 10 in volume velocity in retailers nationwide. Twenty years ago, we weren’t even in the top 25.”
Mangoes — if they were considered at all by U.S. consumers — were seen as an exotic treat only available for a few weeks in summer, he says. Getting consumer attention was one of the biggest challenge in those early years, he adds.
Things are different now.
According to the NMB, there were 3.5 pounds of mango available per person in the U.S. in 2024, equating to 130 million boxes of mangoes delivered to the U.S. annually, valued at $929 million in 2024. And mangoes are available year-round.
According to the USDA, the first half of 2025 saw a 42% increase in fresh mango imports compared with the same time in 2024. This increase came in large part from record-setting import volumes from Peru during the first three months of 2025.
Ojeda adds that the board’s recent surveys show that roughly one in four U.S. households have a mango in the pantry today.
“Imagine that; after 20 years, one in four,” he says. “Imagine the opportunity of the three other households.”
Education Then, Now, Into the Future
Tapping into that opportunity will take continued dedication to education, the perennial challenge that the NMB has tackled throughout its tenure.
Education efforts over the years have included a lot of promotion to capture consumer attention. According to the NMB, those efforts have been quite successful, showing a $16 return to the industry for every $1 spent over the past 10 years. Direct consumer education has focused on how to select, handle and use mangoes, these being areas that even interested newcomers to the fruit are often uncertain about.
But it’s not just the need to educate consumers, Ojeda adds. The entire supply chain has important roles to play in driving mango demand by delivering good mango-eating experiences to consumers.
Ojeda notes that there is a lot that can go wrong along the mango’s complex supply chain, which involves numerous producers across several different countries, not to mention distributors and retailers across the country. Anything from picking a mango at the wrong time down to a retailer putting unripe mangoes in cold storage can result in a bad eating experience for the consumer.
Educating the supply chain on everyone’s critical role in supporting consumer demand was one of the biggest barriers the NMB had to break “back in the day,” Ojeda says. Looking forward, however, he describes the need for a holistic focus on growing the industry and educating consumers on how mangoes can fit into their lives and values.
“Our biggest challenge is to grow a great, constant supply of good quality mangoes while at the same time educate consumers in all the good quality properties of mango regarding versatility and nutritional values and great flavor,” he says.
Honor to the Mango and Its Pioneers
Ojeda calls the mango an “amazing, super delicious, ultra nutritious fruit” and invites U.S. consumers who have never tried it to pick one up next time they go to the grocery store.
“It is called the king of fruits around the world,” he points out. “Along with bananas, it’s one of the most popular fruits in pretty much all of the rest of the world, but it’s not well known here in the U.S.”
That is why the NMB has been so critical to the mango industry, he adds. He calls himself just the messenger as the executive director who, together with his team, follow the vision of the NMB’s board members over the years.
“The pioneers — if I may call them that — who got together to put the work in to get the National Mango Board going and every board member between 2005 and now — all 90 of them — deserve our appreciation and recognition just because of the work they do,” Ojeda says.
The success that the NMB and the U.S. mango industry has seen over the past 20 years “takes hard work and dedication of so many people,” he adds. “We’re so glad that we are a part of it.”
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