Avocados star in Cinco de Mayo promotions

If you’re not promoting your avocados front and center just before May 5, you’re missing a prime opportunity to increase sales. Yes, other types of fresh produce work great, too, for the Cinco de Mayo holiday.

“Cross-merchandising avocados with other fresh categories will help drive incremental purchases, as many consumers are looking for foods that help reinforce healthy eating for themselves and their families,” said Stephanie Bazan, vice president of shopper and trade marketing at Avocados From Mexico, a nonprofit avocado marketing organization based in Irving, Texas.

But Cinco de Mayo avocado shoppers make 19.4 trips per year compared to the average avocado shoppers at 10.7 trips per year, according to a shopper profile study provided by the organization.

And avocado consumption during the four weeks leading up to Cinco de Mayo has grown 27% in the last five years, according to Nielsen data. The holiday is the second biggest period for U.S. avocado consumption, after the Super Bowl.

Avocados from Peru aren’t available in the U.S. until June, but avocados from Mexico and from California are ripe and ready to party for the May 5 celebration.

The holiday marks Mexico’s victory over France in the Battle of Puebla in 1862. That battle was 15 years after everyone in California and other southwestern states, all part of Mexico, were made U.S. citizens by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Read more about the full history behind Cinco de Mayo.

Promoting avocados for the holiday

Suggesting Mexican-inspired recipes in point-of-sale materials, ads, social media and with QR codes is an easy way to merchandise and market your avocados before the spring fling. 

You have to think, “What can you do to increase lift and ring even more during this holiday?” said Karen Nardozza, president and CEO of Moxxy Marketing. “If your company is consumer-facing, use recipe ideas, party ideas to increase consumption.”

The California Avocado Commission has 88 recipes under its Cinco de Mayo category on californiaavocado.com.

Besides the obviously delicious and popular guacamole and taco recipes, consider recommending something such as chicken albondigas soup, a Mexican meatball soup great for lingering chills, or California avocado pineapple salsa for those tortilla chips. And suggest shoppers wash it down with an Avorita, an avocado margarita recipe with a 4.5-star rating on the California avocado website’s recipe page.

The commission works with retailers to create customized promotions that include sales and display contests, in-store merchandising, and social and digital support.

Avocados, in whole form or in value-added incarnations, are really on a roll during this time.

“It’s one of our top-selling holidays. It can be almost as big as Super Bowl depending on promotional levels,” said Jay Alley, co-owner and vice president of sales for Fresh Innovations and its ¡Yo Quiero! brands based in Rhome, Texas.

Four Seasons Produce, Ephrata, Pa., started offering a Party Pak of West Pak hass avocados about six weeks before the holiday. The packaging says it serves three to four people, is “for your occasions” and includes a party guacamole recipe. 

Brian Dey, Four Seasons senior merchandiser and natural stores coordinator, sets up avocado-centric Cinco de Mayo produce displays in-store for customers. He trains the retail staff members to create festive, eye-catching displays with smart cross-merchandising for this holiday and throughout the year.

Other Cinco de Mayo promotions

For the Bronx, N.Y.-based Baldor Specialty Foods’ mostly foodservice customers, Cinco de Mayo has a strong pull for items such as avocados, queso fresco and limes. The company also has a line of fresh-cut, value-added produce for retailers.

“I see this as the peak outdoor dining season, which drives the majority of sales,” said Emily Murphy, Baldor’s director of specialty merchandising. “City residents have not left for holidays, winter hibernation is over and it’s not yet blistering hot.”

Baldor’s marketing and promotion strategies will focus on featuring staples for the typical Cinco de Mayo menus, including an updated offering from Kitchen Garden Farm salsa and hot sauce. The company will feature items on its Peak Season promotion page on baldorfood.com/peakseason. “Spring season brings a chef’s paradise of ingredients,” Murphy said.

Compared to other holidays, Cinco de Mayo isn’t a major volume or sales driver for DeCicco & Sons, a gourmet grocery store with several locations in the lower Hudson Valley of New York, especially Westchester County, which hugs the northern border of New York City.

“However, it is growing every year,” said Joseph DeCicco Jr., one of the owners. “… It seems that consumers appreciate more and more the opportunity to celebrate a holiday. Cinco gives us the chance to be creative in our merchandising and promotions, which definitely helps create excitement during what would traditionally be a stale period between Easter/Passover and Mother’s Day.”

The retailer has produced behind-the-scenes videos of how the store makes its guacamole and tortilla chips ¬— videos which run in-store and on social media.

“The goal is to provide inspiration to shoppers, whether it’s to throw a full-blown Cinco de Mayo party or simply a Latin-inspired meal,” he said. “Identifying and highlighting those traditional Mexican brands and ingredients throughout the store is a fun way to provide that inspiration.”

Back to avocados

While the thousands of avocado growers, packers and importers represented by Avocados From Mexico make up about 85% of the market share in the U.S., California’s 2022 avocado crop is expected to be about 15% larger than last year’s, and prices likely will be higher, too, according to the commission. The USDA recorded early season prices up about 24% over the average of the three previous years — 2019, 2020, 2021.

Fresh Innovations and its ¡Yo Quiero! brands will use social media to spread awareness of the company’s guacamole, salsa and other products, as well as offer a trade program to encourage retailers to create fun displays of its product and encourage sales.

“Retailers have done a great job creating dip-and-chip displays around their guacamole sections.  It’s easy to stack chips, put up fun signage and provide deals for purchase,” Alley said. “We’ve also seen retailers use smaller coolers around the store to encourage guacamole sales — especially on the chip and/or tortilla aisles.”

Retailers, merchandisers and produce managers know If they use fun display signage with great price points, they will encourage that impulse buy, which could lead to repeat purchases in the future, he said.

Avocados From Mexico partnered with Mission Tortillas chips and Modelo beer to offer retailers different bin sizes, signs and sell sheets, as well as to help with promotion deals and social media marketing.

The Cinco de Mayo shoppers’ basket spend doubles when buying chips and avocados, and it’s 1.7 times more when buying beer and avocados than when avocados are not in the basket, according to Numerator, a consumer insights firm.

The organization’s main theme for the 2022 holiday mashes two words: “ADDvocados for a CincOMG.” There are also bins with more pithy sayings: “You had me at good fats” and “Always tasty, always good.”

The U.S. resumed importing Mexican avocados Feb. 18, after a weeklong ban when a USDA inspector was threatened. Prices are up across the board.

The most popular avocado variety, hass, had its 2021 retail sales nationwide jump from $182 million in January to $210 million in May, according to the Hass Avocado Board.