Consumers are paying more at the greengrocer for their favourite summer fruits, after supplies of avocados, stone fruits and mangoes failed to meet strong holiday season demand.
For avocado growers, it has been a lean year with reduced crops around the country but particularly in southwest Western Australia, where most of the domestic summer supply is sourced.
Avocados Australia chief executive John Tyas said he had seen prices for single avocados exceed $5 at retail outlets, creating serious risks that customers would stop buying the fruit, triggering memories of problems faced by the banana industry in the wake of Cyclone Yasi.
“You turn consumers off and then it takes a long time to get those people back in the habit of eating avocados again,” Mr Tyas said.
“We want consumers to be able to buy a good-value crop year round, but because demand seems to be increasing each year, it pushes that gap and takes the prices up to levels that we don’t like seeing.”
Supplies of much-loved summer mangoes are down after a reduced crop across the Northern Territory and the Kimberley, leaving Queensland to pick up the slack.
Australian Mango Industry Association chief executive Trevor Dunmall said there was no clear explanation for why the northwest areas had suffered, particularly in the Kimberley where some producers are struggling to find any fruit on their trees.
“Mangoes are a little bit of law unto themselves,” Mr Dunmall said. “For a lot of growers in the north, it’s been a tough year.”
A mild winter and spring have also reduced peach and nectarine numbers, pushing prices up to levels not seen for the past few years.
Forecasts for the coming year are more optimistic, particularly among avocado growers who plan to plant more trees as they expand into foreign markets.
Brothers Stewart and Mitchell Ipsen intend to plant more than 20,000 trees on their avocado farms near Manjimup, 300km south of Perth.
Stewart Ipsen said they were hoping to grow market sales in Southeast Asia and parts of the Middle East ahead of tightening competition at home.
“We’ve been trying to steadily increase our markets and the volume that’s leaving our shores because a lot of trees are being planted and the forecasts are that things will get tougher in Australia,” he said.
“The price of avocados will fall here, it has to. With prices at $3 (per avocado) or above, there is definite resistance and sales will fall away pretty fast.”
Source : The Australian