New leadership continues Del Rey Avocado’s strong legacy

Del Rey Avocado, with more than 50 years of experience, has been blessed to be part of the meteoric rise in popularity of avocados across the world. 

“The two things that have contributed to this success are our growers and customer base,” Patrick Lucy, the president of the Fallbrook, CA-based company said. “We do not do anything at Del Rey Avocado until we can answer a simple question: ‘Is it good for our growers?’ If the answer is yes, then most of the time it will be good for us as well.”

The company also aligns itself with retailers and foodservice accounts that understand that all deals need to be fair for everyone involved, especially for the grower.  

“If one side is losing too much or all the time, what type of partnership is that? We value all of the relationships we have with our growers and customers and want both to be satisfied at the end of the day,” Lucy said. 

Last year, Patrick Lucy, Jessica Hunter and Donny Lucy took over ownership from their fathers (who are two legends in the avocado business — Bob Siemer as a farmer and Bob Lucy as a marketer).

“We were able to get our feet wet in 2022 and figure out the direction we wanted Del Rey Avocado to go in the future,” Patrick Lucy said. “We have hired a lot of new positions, and also promoted employees from within to form a team to help Jessica, Donny and myself make Del Rey Avocado as successful in the future as our fathers have made it. We want Del Rey Avocado to be just as successful as years past and we acknowledge there are some new challenges in front of us, but we know with the team we have assembled we will succeed in taking care of our growers.”

Each year, Del Rey Avocado continues to help the organic avocado category grow by providing year-round availability. 

“Now 365 days a year you can have an organic avocado on your plate from California, Mexico or Peru,” Lucy said. “That availability alone has helped move the category forward.”

This year the California crop is going to be a little down from last year at around 250 million pounds but that volume will be made up by Mexico, Peru and Colombia to bring the U.S. total to over 3 billion pounds for the first time ever.

The biggest challenge facing the avocado category this year is a good one — moving these 3-billion pounds in the U.S.

“It is a challenge that all of us at Del Rey Avocado are looking forward to and are ready to tackle head-on,” Lucy said. “We are going to have to try to figure out new ways to bring avocados to market to help move the needle even more. It will also us to try and penetrate new markets and help existing markets increase their consumption.”

There will be some new things being rolled out by the company in 2023, but Lucy noted that 2022 is going to be tough to top as Del Rey Avocado unveiled a new state-of-the-art packing line in Fallbrook that helped make 2022 the largest California season in the company’s history.

“Growers today a facing so many challenges in California between water costs/restrictions, weather, cost of labor/harvesting, and materials,” Lucy said. “It is everyone’s job at Del Rey —  sales, field department, transportation, packing and shipping — to make sure we do our best to deliver the highest quality avocados to our customers, which will then help maximize the return for our growers.”