In past years, the season for “SlimCado” brand green-skin Florida avocados from Brooks Tropicals LLC in Homestead, FL, has wound down with the arrival of the new year. But this year “we’ve got new ‘SlimCado’ varieties that extend our calendar dates,” said Marketing Director Mary Ostlund.

Mary Ostlund“We’re not talking last-gasp fruit” but some excellent late-season varieties, she said. One of them, the Wheeling, “is a personal favorite.”‘ Its flavor, plus the fact that it has is lower in fat and has fewer calories than the alternative in the market “make it a tough-to-beat entry for the super guacamole bowl of all avocado events, the Super Bowl.”

Earlier and larger varieties have also extended the “SlimCado” season on the front end.

The 2012 season for Brooks “started with great early volume,” Ms. Ostlund said, calling it a “rambunctious start.” Consumer emails and strong sales “have shown that consumers have been happily surprised” with the early fruit.

“We don’t expect super-high volumes for the rest of the season, but we had a fantastic start to the season,” she said July 24. “Part of that is we worked really hard to get varieties available earlier in the season.”

Brooks has been growing “SlimCado” avocados for over 80 years in southern Florida, “and to many folks, having a domestically-grown avocado is definitely high on their list of priorities in today’s world.”

Brooks has been working at increasing production without extensive plantings of new acreage. While there has been some added acreage, Ms. Ostlund said, available land is “not an infinite resource.” So “we’ve really worked hard to get more per acre, per field, per tree. What we want to do is make the optimum use out of the acreage we’ve got.”

But cultural practices are not focused purely on maximizing yields, nor even on extending the season. “We have really developed a culture of food safety” in the company, Ms. Ostlund said. “We feel very strongly that as a company food safety is priority number one.” The company regards “every employee as a food safety inspector, and we work for everybody to take on that responsibility.”

The entire operation is food safety certified “from field to store,” she continued. “Our harvesting crews, our groves, our packinghouse, our distribution center are all food safety certified by Primus labs, so you are not only getting a great tasting avocado; you re getting a little peace of mind.”

The company also has a traceability program in place, so if there are “any problems, we can trace [the product] back to the field it came from and the day it was picked.

Another major focus of the company’s cultural and post-harvest practices, she said, is “to deliver a product to the customers’ tables that we feel is the best quality available.”

Ms. Ostlund offers retailers a number of merchandising tips to increase avocado sales. “North Americans love avocados,” she said in a written statement to The Produce News. “Everyone in the produce industry know it. Avocado sales tell it all. But that doesn’t mean you can’t grow your category sales even more.” Besides having “lots of the gotta-have variety” on display, she advised retailers to “expand the breadth of the category with ‘SlimCado’ avocados … the health-conscious alternative your customer will appreciate.”

She suggested also displaying “SlimCados” in “various stages of readiness,” so consumers can pick up some that are ready for their evening meal and some are a little firmer and that will “go the distance” for “lunch in a couple of days. “And make sure your customer knows this fruit doesn’t turn dark as it ripens.”

To help satisfy consumers desire for more knowledge about “SlimCado” avocados, Brooks Tropicals has mobile websites that shoppers can access by scanning QR codes at point of sales with their smart phones. “Brooks Tropicals can help you set up a QR code program for your stores,” she said.