“This season, we are moving more volume than we ever have,” Dana Thomas, president of Index Fresh Inc. in Bloomington, CA, said July 27.

“What we see right now [are] markets that are consuming a tremendous amount of avocados,” he said. “The combination of all the different countries of origin” together with attractive market pricing “has allowed a lot of promotions,” and that has allowed “a lot of customers to move a lot of product.”

The sales group at Index Fresh: Kevin Thron, Sharie Buller, Brian Gomez, Belle Yang, Todd Elder, Sofia Schlapkohl, Debbie Willmann and John Dmytriw.From a marketer’s perspective, he continued, “it has been a pretty positive year. the combination of volume and pricing has made some real opportunities in the marketplace.”

But the produce business is “a roller coaster sometimes,” he said, and that has certainly been the case in the avocado business this season. “If we were having this conversation the end of June, we would have been talking about the smaller sizes being oversupplied. Now we are talking about the big sizes being oversupplied. I think both statements are true in their time, but in the course of the season we have issues like this, and they solve themselves, and you move on to the next one.”

Sometimes “in the short term, there are difficult periods,” Mr. Thomas continued. “But overall, supply and demand works pretty well.” When there is an overabundance of supply in a particular size, “the price goes down, and that presents opportunities.” Although customers have different preferences, there are always some who are “willing to take advantage of those opportunities.”

It does “take some time,” however. “It is really unrealistic for us to ask a retailer or a foodservice person to adjust overnight. It takes some time.”

Index fresh, in its California avocado program, “will continue to have California fruit into the beginning of October” this year, Mr. Thomas said. “We anticipate that the will be significant volume through August and into the middle of September,” and then it will taper off over the next few weeks.

“In Mexico, we aer finishing up the old crop and will be starting new crop Flora Loca at the beginning of August,” he said. The Mexican imports will “continue to increase in volume through August and into September and October.”

The company was currently marketing Peruvian avocados as well, and “we will continue to have Peruvian fruit through the end of August,” he said.

The Chilean season will start a little later than usual this year,” Mr. Thomas said. “We are looking at starting our Chilean program” around Sept. 15.

New on sales at Index Fresh is Brian Gomez, who joined the company several years ago. Mr. Gomez was previously with West Pak Avocado Inc. in Temecula, CA.

More recently, the company hired Keith Blanchard to handle grower relations in the southern growing districts, “to represent us in San Diego and Riverside counties,” Mr. Thomas said. “He has about 20 years in the business, and has it the ground running for us. We are really pleased with what he has done.”