A sure sign of any significant disruption of the avocado market, as our news editor Chris Koger has said more than once, is a story (or a 1,000 stories) about how Chipotle is coping with the shortage.
So far, a Google scan of news items pairing the terms avocados and Chipotle yields no such reports. I’m sure it won’t be too long.
The USDA reports Los Angeles terminal market prices for Mexican avocados on Nov. 12 reached as high as $60 per carton for size 32, while New York terminal market prices reached $65 for size 36 Mexican avocado. The New York price was about $20 per carton higher than a year ago.
In a tweet yesterday, APEAM, the association of Mexican producers and packers of avocados, said the disruption in supply caused by disgruntled growers has stopped the movement of 3,000 metric tons per day and more than 40,000 metric tons in total so far in the lingering dispute.
One would think that cooler heads will soon prevail, that the economic cost of preventing shipments becomes too much.
If you see that Chipotle tomorrow is featured in a story describing the consequences to the chain because of the avocado shortage, the avo-meter alert will officially be pegged at 10.
