During our travels through the various avocado-producing regions of Peru and Latin America, we've observed a restructuring of the avocado supply by producers, particularly small and medium-sized ones. We believe this is due to the challenges these producers have faced over the past two years, with rising production costs and falling prices. Furthermore, some of these producers hadn't established partnerships with exporting companies, preferring to sell to the buyer who offered the best price at the time. We'll refer to this situation as a "sellers' market." However, when this changed three years ago, it became a "buyers' market," meaning there was no clear demand, either locally (internal markets/industry and exporters/collectors) or at the final destinations. This resulted in some growers being unable to sell their harvests, especially the most common sizes, leading them to allocate their production to the processing industry or local markets.

While this might seem like a loss, and it is in financial terms for producers, I consider it an investment, as it generates new demand that didn't exist before. With lower prices, consumers are more tempted to try Hass avocados, which could lead to new, long-term consumption.

Returning to the present, we've observed that some companies are joining forces to offer their Hass avocados to the market. Even at AGROLEAL, we already have our AGROLEAL COMERCIAL division, led by a former colleague of mine, and together with two other professionals, we are uniting small and medium-sized producers to help them access markets directly, with the best quality and condition of fruit, and a proven track record of compliance with ESG standards.

This is very positive for organizing the supply from different origins and thus protecting the reputation of each of our countries.

As the saying goes: "Every cloud has a silver lining."

Alfredo Lira Chirif, Peru alfredo@agroleal.pro