US avo sales hold steady for 5 de Mayo, Mexican Hass holds up well for the celebration.

Coronavirus failed to put a damper on this year’s Cinco de Mayo festival in the US, where guacamole, tequila and other Mexican foods and drinks are an integral part of the celebrations.

Around 50,000 tonnes of Mexican avocados were sent to the US this year ahead of the festivities, according to the Association of Producers and Exporter Packers of Avocado of Mexico (APEAM).

President Gabriel Villaseñor said sales began 15 days earlier, and “despite the Covid-19 pandemic, they were similar to previous years, they neither fell nor grew”.

Cinco de Mayo is the second most important date for Mexican avocado sales in the US, after the Super Bowl.

The festival celebrates Mexico’s victory against the French in the Battle of Puebla on 5 May, 1862.

Mexico’s avocado industry has moved swiftly to implement safety measures to protect its workforce against the virus.

“We established sanitation protocols, including the use of chlorinated water mats, face masks and a series of recommendations made by the World Health Organization (WHO) to take care of our people, who are part of the essential activities of the country,” Villaseñor said.

He noted that US sales had started to fall off during the last weeks of March due to closing of restaurants and fast food outlets.

“When the restaurants closed, they stopped asking for a product that we call class 2, which is avocado with good quality but with some cosmetic problem,” he said.

APEAM estimates that avocado exports will reach 950,000 tonnes in 2020, an increase of 5 per cent on the previous season.

To support companies and producers with responsible and sustainable practices, FGH International Agribusiness Consulting, offers agricultural consulting and business services solutions that merge sound agronomic principles with economic business objectives. Our value proposition not only lies in agricultural consulting, but also in business service solutions within Latin America. We focus on maximizing our partners ROI, consistent with cost-effective and sustainable agronomic practices.We work in partnership with first class agribusiness solution providers, developed by and for sector commodities stakeholders such as banana, sugar cane, palm oil, horticulture, coffee, cocoa, beef, etc., despite language, country, region. We provide solutions that enables producers and processors not only to keep track of performance, but also to set realistic, attainable goals and to elaborate improvement plans for each stage of their journey to a more sustainable production. We help them go above and beyond certification/verification levels, creating greater visibility of the progress made over time by (non-)certified/verified producers; allowing to roadmap every stage of their agribusiness value chain.To find out more about our solutions or to share learnings to support suppliers on their journey to excellence, please feel free to contact us, FGH’s International Agribusiness, Latin America's leading agribusiness consulting firm.