Launched last season, Index Fresh Inc. is finding continued success with its AvoBuddies offering, a kid- and family-friendly retail pack of avocados.

Dana Thomas, president and chief executive officer of the Bloomington, CA-based avocado grower, packer and shipper, said the company got great traction with the pack last year and has expanded its purpose and use this year. “Originally it was designed to hold two pounds of small fruit as a way to add value to smaller-sized fruit,” said Thomas. “But now we are expanding the program and using it for different sizes and different packs.”

With its cartoonish characters, recipes and other messaging, the pack has proven to be a great way to communicate to the consumer and to increase sales. In fact, Thomas believes that selling avocados in multiples is one of the keys to continuing the impressive consumption gains the fruit has made over the last 15 years in the United States.

“I do think we are going to continue to see sales increases for three reasons,” he said. “One, people who don’t eat avocados will start eating them. Two, people who buy them occasionally now will start buying them more frequently. And third, I do think we can promote more sales by selling them more than one at a time.”

Index Fresh is finding continued success with its AvoBuddies retail pack of avocados.While Index is a supplier of fruit from Mexico, Chile and Peru as well as California, he said the firm is owned by California growers, and California production has always been a very integral part of the firm’s business since it began operating more than 100 years ago. Index Orchards started as a grower-owned citrus distributor in 1914, became a cooperative in 1929, and started selling and packing California avocados in 1950. For the past 65 years, avocados, and specifically California avocados, have been one of the main drivers of the co-op’s success.

“California is still a key part of what we do,” said Thomas. “From March to late August or early September we service all of our accounts with California avocados.”

Thomas said most of the California production is marketed from California to Denver, “but we do have some East Coast accounts that insist on California fruit when we have it.”

To call out the point of origin, Index will be stickering all of its California fruit and packs with the “Hand Grown in California” sticker this year. The California point-of-origin sticker was introduced last season by the California Avocado Commission and its use is being expanded this season. Thomas said Index’s use of the stickering program has several components. “We definitely do it to support the California industry, and we do believe it adds value,” he said

He added that California is getting good results by positioning its fruit as a premium product and the “locally grown” or “California-grown” angle “resonates across the United States. It is too early to tell if the stickering has an impact on consumers but we do believe that the closer you are to market, the fresher the fruit is.”

As noted earlier, Thomas believes there is still much untapped potential for increased avocado consumption. He is bullish on the future of the industry. “We have seen through the first part of this year that the market price has held even with increased volume. We are very happy that we can provide a good product to our customers at a good price point and also that growers are receiving a good price for their fruit.”

He added that currently the balance between the value consumers are getting and the price growers are receiving “seems to have hit the sweet spot. The demand this spring has been excellent.”

Responding to increased sales, Index added three new sales people to its desk this season in Teri Morrison, Bill Frank and Jessica Chavez. Thomas said one filled a vacant sales slot but the other two are new positions speaking to the firm’s expansion of business — and the continued growth of avocado sales in the United States.