With a larger crop of avocados in the market this year, California growers expect their shipping season to continue later into the year than usual, with peak volume continuing through August and much of September, good volume into October, and some shipments moving into the market as late as November.

In support of the large crop and the extenuated shipping period, the California Avocado Commission will be continuing promotional activities well into fall.

Jan DeLyserThe commission also got an earlier start in its promotional programs for the 2013 season than it has done for the last several years in support of what was expected to be heavier-than-usual volume in a large crop year.

A total California crop of around 500 million pounds is anticipated for the year, up from around 460 million pounds in 2012 and a much smaller crop the prior year.

This year, “the fall volume” for the months of September, October and November “looks to be about 82 million pounds,” Jan DeLyser, vice president of marketing for the commission, told The Produce News. “Of that, about 52 million will be available in September, about 23 million in October, and right around seven million into November.”

The commission “will go with strong promotional support through Labor Day and into mid-September,” she said. “We’ve got an ad contest and display contest that have been running throughout our seasons, beginning in May, and they are going to run through mid-September.“ Along with that, “we will have media activity — advertising — in support of promotions through Labor Day.”

In the later part of September, through October, and into November, as volume winds down, “we will have targeted activity with specific customers who want to stay in California avocados as long as they can,” she said.

New this year for the late season, is a partnership with the California Beef Council in which “we have put together a booklet of recipes that we are going to release fairly soon,” DeLyser said. “It is intended to be a promotion that raises the awareness of grilling with avocados and burgers and things like that in the late summer and into fall, transitioning into the tailgating season,” tying in with college football and pro football seasons as well as the major league baseball playoffs and the World Series.

The recipe brochure will be available to retailers by early August, DeLyser said. “It will be in the marketplace, and it is available on our website on the retailers’ POS order form area.”

The early California Hass avocado season was characterized by smaller-than-normal fruit sizes. The fruit was “slow to size this season,” DeLyser said.

But “along about early July, we started seeing more of the larger sizes coming in, so we are into a mode where we’ve got more of the larger sizes available than we had earlier in the season. Through the rest of the year, I think we are going to have a more traditional range of sizes available.”

It was a challenge early on, she said, “to transition people into a different size” than they traditionally have used or to target “customers that were handling the sizes we had. But as we moved through the season, we have had some great support on the ad contest and the display contests participation, and we have had some good promotional activity with specific customers.”

In the foodservice sector, “I think we’ve got 25 foodservice operator promotions going on [with] really strong support,” she said. “We’ve worked this year” to have the messages “California Grown” or “Hand Grown in California” at point of purchase “as well as in the various promotional activities, and that has been very successful.”

The Fourth of July holiday has become a major occasion for avocado consumption in the United States, DeLyser said. About five years ago, the commission “set about making the Fourth one of the top consumption events” of the year, and in 2012 it surpassed both Super Bowl weekend and Cinco de Mayo to become the top avocado consumption event of the year at just over 85 million pounds from all sources of supply.

This year, Fourth of July consumption increased to 98 million pounds and was nip-and-tuck with Super Bowl at 100.4 million pounds and Cinco at 100.1 million pounds.

As total avocado consumption in the United States has increased dramatically over the past 10 to 15 years and as the volume of avocados imported into the United States from other producing areas has grown, “the California industry’s market share has gone down as a percentage of the whole,” DeLyser said. But California has been “successful in maintaining market share during the height of our season.”

A prevailing consumer trend of “wanting to know where the product is from and who is producing it” continues to be strong, “and we think that bodes well for fruit that is domestically produced,” she said.

Although the Hass variety dominates U.S. consumption and California production, constituting about 95 percent of what is produced in California, the state does produce other varieties as well. Lamb Hass, a late-season Hass-like variety, is expected to come in at about 13.5 million pounds this year.

“That is available now and will be available through the fall,” DeLyser said.

Among the other varieties that are available in smaller volumes at different times of the year are Reed, Fuerte, Pinkerton, Zutano and Bacon.