Chilean avocados in Asia: a stable market with the challenge of educating the consumer
While several origins have reduced their presence or abandoned Asia due to high logistical costs and commercial complexity, Chile maintains close to 9% of its Hass avocado exports in that continent.
On the global avocado map, Asia always appears as a promise of limitless potential. However, in practice, it is one of the most difficult markets to develop. For Chile, this reality is nothing new. Today, approximately 9% of its Hass avocado production is destined for Asia, with China accounting for the majority of those shipments. This percentage, far from expanding, has stabilized.
This data is significant in a context where several producing countries have been reducing their shipments to Asia, pressured by long transit times, high logistics costs, and a market highly sensitive to the fruit's condition. Chile, on the other hand, has chosen to maintain its levels.
Growth is not always the goal
For Francisco Contardo-Sfeir, executive president of the Chilean Hass Avocado Committee, remaining in China is an important decision, but one that isn't necessarily aimed at growth. Nor is it due to a negative market assessment.
“There’s no disincentive, but neither is there a strong incentive to grow.” The decision, he explains, is not linked to the Asian country’s potential, but to the strategic prioritization of resources.
Chile is one of the countries that actively invested in China a few years ago. For two seasons, the industry ran promotional campaigns that resulted in significant volume increases in certain regions of the country. In inland cities like Chengdu, shipments grew by up to 200% during the promotional periods. However, once these campaigns ended, the market stabilized.
Currently, Chilean shipments to China range between 9,000 and 10,000 tons per season.
Education and culture for consumption
One of the main challenges in the Chinese market has been consumer education. In the early years, all origins sought to teach how to consume avocados, but even within that shared effort, significant differences emerged.
There's a very telling example: while some regions promote eating avocados when they're soft but still green, Chile requires them to be black and soft for optimal consumption. Both practices are correct, but in a developing market, they create conflicting messages.
Added to this is a crucial cultural factor: in China, avocado is primarily perceived as a fruit. Its main form of consumption is in smoothies , where the fruit has gained popularity, but under a different logic than its traditional savory consumption in the West.
“China is enormous. If everyone in China ate an avocado every day, we’d run out of avocados. It’s an attractive market to maintain, but growing it right now is very expensive. We, at least as an association, don’t focus on it for growth or promotion. When you see that this market isn’t so easy, you realize that it’s easier to run a campaign in Europe because they already know how avocados are consumed,” explains the president of the Chilean avocado growers.
Another factor that has received little attention is the reduction in consumption due to the departure of foreigners from China. Historically, a significant portion of avocado consumption in China was linked to immigrant communities, especially in cities like Shanghai and Beijing. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, many of these consumers returned to their countries of origin.
The shrinking of this product-familiar demand base added to the existing cultural and logistical challenges, reinforcing the decision not to accelerate growth in this market.
