“The organic program is extremely important to Del Rey. It is a very big part of our company,” whether it be fruit from California, Mexico or Peru, said Bob Lucy, president of Del Rey Avocado Co.

The company has been getting “very good returns for growers” with organic avocados, and getting good returns for growers is “our number one job,” he said.

Del Rey has been involved in organics for about 10 years, and the program has grown to where the company handles “a very high percentage” of the California organic avocado crop, Lucy said.

The past year has been “a very good year” for Del Rey in its organic program, Lucy said.

This year, Del Rey brought in organic avocados from Peru for the first time, “and so far it has been excellent,” he said.

With Peruvian avocados in general, one of the challenges has been the tendency toward very large sizes with “a lot of 28s, 32s and 36s, and that is not the case in the organic deal,” Lucy said. “The organic is basically peaking on 48s and 60s, and those are really the most desired retail sizes.” Grower returns have been “very good, and prices have been at a level that has enabled the retail stores to do very well.

Del Rey’s organic avocados from California and Chile are packed under the “Del Rey Farms” label, as distinct from the “Del Rey Avocados” label the company uses for conventional fruit.

This year, the Peruvian organic avocados have been coming up in a grower label, but “we will work [toward] getting it into ‘Del Rey Farms’ in the future,” he said.

Looking to the future of the organic program, “I see us expanding in all areas,” Lucy said.

Del Rey has been successful in getting its organic avocados into some “very prestigious chain stores” that feature organic products, Lucy said. Growers of organic products who have seen the “Del Rey Farms” avocados in those stores have decided that Del Rey was a good company to associate with. Also, “growers talk to growers,” and that has helped bring more organic fruit to the company’s program. “It has been a growth area for us.”

Being in organic has also “given us access to some accounts” that the company had not previously been able to get into with its avocados, Lucy said. “Now we are selling them not only organic” but conventional fruit as well, and also bagged avocados and “Gator Eggs,” a six-pack of size 84 avocados from Shanley Farms, packed in a carton similar to the one used to pack a half-dozen eggs. “Organic has really brought a lot of business for us.”

Growing organic avocados is “much more challenging” than conventional avocado farming, Lucy said. “You have to work very hard at it. But some things are the same. In either case, being a good avocado farmer largely “comes down to being a good irrigator and putting the proper water on. That doesn’t change, whether it is conventional or organic.”