Sales increases supported by more growers and more fruit are driving expansion at West Pak Avocado Inc., in Murrieta, CA.

“We continue to scale up the company,” said Doug Meyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing at this Southern California firm. “We are staffing up and increasing our hard assets, including more ripening rooms and increased packing capacity to move the extra volume.”

Doug Meyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing at West Pak Avocado Inc., in Murrieta, CA. (Photo courtesy of West Pak Avocado Inc.)Specifically, the company is currently in the process of enlarging its Mexican packing facility located in Uruapan, Michoacan, and this fall, it will be moving to a new regional ripening and distribution center in Dallas to handle the fruit crossing from Mexico for shipments throughout the United States. “We will keep our Edinburg, TX, facility open but the Dallas distribution center will handle a majority of the volume and it will be the hub for all of our Mexican fruit heading to our other ripening and distribution centers.”

He said the fruit will first come into Dallas and then be shipped directly to customers or to the company’s other distribution centers, including those in California, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Meyer said Mexico has become the dominant player in the marketing of avocados in the U.S. market with over 70 percent of the volume. And it appears as if the United States’ closest neighbor to the south will be the main source for future growth, as well.

Meyer has no doubt the U.S. market will continue to expand, as it has done dramatically in the past decade. “There are additional supply regions capable of supplying the U.S., such as South Africa, which is in the process of certification for the U.S, and Colombia, which is not as far along in the process, but we continue to see Mexico as the big driver of increased supplies in future years.”

The West Pak executive did not underplay the importance of every supplier, including the emerging supply regions, noting that every pound helps fill the increasing demand. But he said the revised ruling allowing all Mexican states to apply for certification for avocado shipments to the United States will continue to allow that country to be the dominant player in the market.

Currently, all of the U.S.-bound shipments come from the state of Michoacán, which has the vast majority of Mexico’s supplies and many young trees in the ground. But many other states have some production and the ability to increase that production. It is widely recognized that growers from the state of Jalisco will be the first additional packing sheds to gain certification. “I can’t tell you when it is going to happen but we are well-posited in Jalisco when it does happen,” Meyer said. “We already have key growers in that area that we are working with for sales to other destinations besides the U.S.”

Assessing the current U.S. avocado marketing situation, Meyer said both Peru and California will have fruit through August, but new crop fruit from Mexico has now entered the marketplace and will provide West Pak with the majority of its volume from mid-August on.

“By the middle of September to early October we should be getting avocados from Chile as well with Peru pretty much finished,” he said. “It won’t be a tidal wave from Chile but we are expecting more volume than last year.”

While West Pak strives for a seamless transition for its customers as the harvest moves from one point of origin to another, he said there are differences that need to be taken into account.

He noted that the new crop fruit from Mexico needs additional ripening time and that needs to be factored in whether the company is providing the ripening service or its customers are managing their own ripening program.