Index Fresh Inc. in Bloomington, CA, will have a larger Mexican avocado program this year than it has ever had, but the same thing was true last year and the year before. “We have grown our program every year since we started, and we plan on growing the program again this year,” said President Dana Thomas.

The crop out of Mexico is large this year, Mr. Thomas said. “We expect good volumes throughout the Mexican Dana Thomasseason — volumes that customers can promote with.”

There was “a fast start to the season, with good volumes, and we anticipate that will continue,” he said.

The transition out of California fruit and into a predominantly Mexican program “is going well,” Mr. Thomas said Oct. 1. “We had significant California volume through September, but we were able to also pull Mexican volume on top of that, so we had significant numbers of both Mexican and California fruit.”

California’s volume “of course is going to fall off in October, and we will increase our Mexican volume at that time to replace California volume,” he said. “We will also have some Chilean volume coming in.” Who gets which fruit “will be based upon customer preference and freight rates, principally,” the cost of freight being the main factor that will influence a customer’s decision to use either Mexican or Chilean product.

To date, there had been “no issues with the transition,” Mr. Thomas said. “We have handled a lot of Flora Loca out of Mexico,” Flora Loca being an early crop from an off-season bloom that precedes the main crop, and “the quality has been good. I’ve been happy about that.

“We anticipate that the Aventajada,” the early fruit from the main crop, “will be good quality as well,” he said.

Index Fresh will be ripening Mexican avocados at facilities in Philadelphia, Denver and Chicago as well as in Texas and California, and shipping the fruit from those locations, Mr. Thomas said. “We can do, out of Texas, a two-layer lug, single-layer flats and RPCs, and we can also do bags.”

All of Index Fresh’s avocados out of Mexico are packed in the company’s “Avo Terra” label.

In summary, he said, Index Fresh is experiencing “continued growth and expansion of our Mexican deal, we’ve got good-quality fruit and promotable volumes, and we can provide a variety of packs with great service.”