This is the warning from Alfredo Lira, Director and Founder of AgroLeal, who believes that low prices are an opportunity to increase consumption.

Avobook's reports from the last two weeks show Peru as a major player in the European avocado market. Currently, it is the leading supplier, although the fruit is smaller than usual and prices are lower.

While awaiting the turn of the coastal region's production, with better size and -in addition- better prices, the Director and Founder of AgroLeal, Alfredo Lira Chirif, shares with Avobook his view on the markets that most drive the growth of consumption within the old continent, calling for calm regarding prices, as he believes that the current situation is an opportunity for conquest.

Regarding Peruvian production, Lira explains that, in the last three years, problems had to be faced due to the effect of climatic phenomena.

“Initially, due to very cold winters, and then last year, after coming out of a very warm winter in 2023, the tree didn't get the rest it needed, and this has caused production to decrease. I estimate a 30% decrease this year. I would say 50% due to the amount of fruit and another 50% due to the decrease in total weight,” he says.

As the Avobook Report has warned, Alfredo Lira points out that this phenomenon means that today there are very high prices for medium and large calibers, but very low prices for small calibers that come from his country.

“These past two or three years have been challenging for the industry, which has been facing rising container and supply costs. Exports have seen a decrease in the margins we were used to,” he explains.

The agronomist, trained at the National Agrarian University La Molina in Peru, with postgraduate studies at the Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile, has managed several prominent companies in the agribusiness sector. Drawing on this experience, he explains which countries are key to the growth in avocado consumption in Europe.

“The natural consumers were France and Spain. I don’t count the Netherlands, because they import the fruit, but they aren’t necessarily consumers. The ones pushing this trend are Italy and Germany, who used to consume green fruit and now consume the Hass variety, or are increasingly doing so,” he notes.

These are very interesting but demanding markets: “England, Italy, and Germany are countries capable of paying good, more homogeneous prices, but consumers are demanding in terms of quality, and the challenge lies in responding to that characteristic.”

"In general, the rest of Europe is growing at reasonable rates, between 5% and 7% of consumption per year. Supply has also grown very quickly, and the impact is visible. We need to help promote fruit so that there is more consumption," he says.

Regarding the prices currently being paid in the market, he prefers to view them from an optimistic perspective, stating that, from his experience, "when the price is low, let's take it as an investment, because when the price goes down it facilitates greater consumption, people start to like it and then that price will regulate itself a little higher and we will all be happier."