It’s June, which means it’s California Avocado Month again. Nearly all the avocados grown in the United States come from the Golden State, and the monthlong celebration, which coincides with the peak season for harvesting avocados there, is the brainchild of marketers at the California Avocado Commission. But insofar as their aim is to raise the profile of the creamy, big-pitted green fruit, the promotional month hardly seems necessary: We are already eating avocados in record quantities. In 2016, Americans consumed an average of seven pounds’ worth of avocados—up from a mere pound in 1974. U.S. avocado production alone (172,630 tons) was valued at $316 million. And domestic sales of avocados in 2016 came to $1.6 billion.
And we’re finding new ways to eat them. According to the payment-processing firm Square, Americans shelled out almost $900,000 a month on avocado toast last year, a staggering increase from the $17,000 a month we spent on this simple treat in 2014. Square estimates avocado toast can cost anywhere from $2 to $18, depending on the venue. (Cork Wine Bar in downtown D.C. features one for $13.) And perhaps most telling, Starbucks has recently added avocado spread to its permanent menu.
It wasn’t always like this. In the first half of the 20th century, avocados were not commonly consumed in the United States. In Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking (1931) there are precisely two recipes that call for “avocado pears”: avocado pear salad and avocado pear, orange, and grapefruit salad. (They also used to be called alligator pears, which did them no favors.)
There was, of course, a far better recipe: “Best known of Mexico’s contributions to avocado lore is the piquant spread, guacamole,” writes June Owen in a 1953 New York Times article. “North of the border, where it has become increasingly popular, it may serve as a dip for potato chips or strips of raw vegetables such as carrots, cauliflower, celery, sweet red onions or green peppers.”
Guacamole, which is a combination of the words for “avocado” and “mixture” in the Nahuatl language, was further popularized by Diana Kennedy in her seminal The Cuisines of Mexico (1972). “Never, never use a blender for the avocado to turn it into one of those smooth, homogeneous messes!” she warns. And it’s best eaten the moment it is made. “Almost immediately the delicate green will darken and the fresh, wonderful flavor will be lost.”
There are over 900 varieties of avocado but the one we mostly eat—the one we use to make guacamole—is the Hass. “Over 90 percent of the avocados on shop shelves are Hass,” writes Lara Ferroni in her cookbook An Avocado a Day. They “ship and store especially well and have a great flavor and mouthfeel to boot.” (The Hass cultivar was first grown in the 1920s in LaHabra Heights, California.)
I can still picture my father eating a creamy Hass avocado—topped with cornflakes—before he headed out to work. This was in the late 1970s, not long after Kennedy’s Cuisines of Mexico came out. But one day my mother just stopped making it for him. When I asked her why, she said at the time, “Well, you know, it has too much fat.”
My mother wasn’t alone: Consumers everywhere were turning their backs on the fruit because of its fat content. This was of course before any distinction was made between the “good” (monounsaturated) fat found in avocados and “bad” (saturated) fat found in, say, lard. Even the Times warned in 1987 that “prepared salads may contain high-fat ingredients like cheese, nuts, seeds, olives, avocados, eggs, croutons and creamy dressings. You can do better at a serve-yourself salad bar, as long as you stick to fresh or steamed vegetables, tuna without oil, chicken, turkey, ham or shrimp and a dribble of salad dressing.”
The result was a major supply glut. “In 1982,” writes Bee Wilson in the Wall Street Journal, “California avocado growers had so much of the fruit that they considered marketing it as a food for dogs (not a great idea since it contains persin, a substance that gives some dogs an upset stomach).” During that decade, the price of avocados plummeted to 10 cents a pound.
It was at this critical juncture that the California Avocado Commission, which represents the interests of the state’s growers, enlisted the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton (now H+K Strategies). Bonnie Goodman, who was then general manager at the firm, recalled the marketing efforts on behalf of her client during the late 1980s into the mid-’90s. “The key to our plan was to ‘humanize’ the fruit—make it relatable and fun—as a way to remove the mystery,” she told me. “Our programs included creating a larger-than-life avocado costume, staffed by an H&K team member, that was the centerpiece for contests, retail appearances, special events, holiday celebrations, and the like.” (The costumed character was known as Mr. Ripe Guy.)
And then there was the Super Bowl tie-in known as the Guacamole Bowl, “a nationwide contest that pitted NFL teams against each other through the power of the guacamole recipes associated with a player, coach, player’s wife, etc.” The campaign was a massive success.
“The use of the Internet for food marketing was in its nascent years,” Goodman pointed out. “There were a handful of food companies (the major ones like Kraft) that had websites—but we knew we were really onto something.” Goodman, who is currently senior vice president of marketing for the Music Center, Los Angeles County’s performing arts center, called it a “strategic integrated plan”: “We saw the potential to provide consumers with a wide variety of information online, from information and facts about avocados to recipes and uses for the fruit. Guided by research about consumer insights and attitudes, we developed a plan that would extend beyond traditional food marketing; that was critical since consumers had not yet embraced the avocado as a staple and had little familiarity about the fruit.”
Just as Diana Kennedy had to explain when it was best to eat guacamole, Goodman said there was a need to teach consumers simply how to shop for avocados. “Key to our strategic approach was to make the avocado accessible and to help consumers to understand that they needed to buy the fruit when it was ripe (or teach them how to ripen it) so they would always be satisfied with their purchase.”
Eventually the health experts also came around. As Olga Khazan noted in a 2015 chronicle of the avocado boom in the Atlantic, the California Avocado Commission
This ultimately led to the wider embrace of the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes more “good” fats and fewer carbohydrates.
“The Mediterranean diet offered a means of embracing the beauty and deliciousness of food—so much more enticing than the previous nutritional regime based on self denial and abstinence,” writes Nina Teicholz in The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. “The diet soared in popularity because diners were delighted to eat, guilt-free, all those previously banned fatty foods, such as olives, avocados, and nuts.” (And yes, my parents are back to eating avocados.)
From here, the green fruit’s fortunes only got better. In 1997, the Department of Agriculture lifted its 83-year-old ban on Mexican avocados. It had been in place since 1914 and was meant to prevent the spread of weevils. (It also served handily to protect California growers from foreign competition.) Efforts were made to lift the ban after the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1994. “The avocados will be subject to a nine-step program of monitoring in Mexico and at the border, which is designed to forestall entry into this country of any potentially lethal pests,” the Los Angeles Times then reported. “Only avocados from approved orchards will be allowed.” Suddenly avocados were available to Americans year-round and not just during California’s growing season (February to September). And luckily there was no weevil infestation.
But there have been shortages. Just last year a smaller California crop coincided with a Mexican drought, resulting in an overall decline in the avocado supply. According to the Wall Street Journal, the cost of a case of 48 Hass avocados shot up 75 percent. “The prices were too high,” recalled Aniceto Castillo, chef de cuisine at MXDC, a high-end Mexican eatery in Washington, D.C. “I think we paid like $100 a case. Previously it was like $30-$35.” The restaurant, which serves both a traditional as well as a lobster-and-corn guacamole, goes through between 14 and 16 cases each week (meaning about 100 avocados a day, roughly 700 a week). “Now it’s $50 per case,” Castillo told me last March. (Prices have since dropped again. A crop boom has been forecast for the coming year, guaranteeing an abundance of affordable Mexican and California avocados to come.) Even the higher price was worth paying, considering that customers are more than willing to pay up to $15 for guacamole at MXDC.
Needless to say, the high demand extends to the supermarket. “Avocados are a key sales driver in the produce department at Whole Foods Market,” said Kevin Doty, senior global produce coordinator for the Austin-based organic chain. “When it comes to avocados, we offer multiple stages of ripeness to cater to the needs of our customers. As one of our customer favorites, we also offer amazing everyday pricing on both loose and bagged avocados, and each store creates their own in-house-made guacamoles.” The chain, which was recently acquired by Amazon (so now they really do have amazing everyday pricing!), was not at liberty to discuss actual sales or volume.
Chipotle Mexican Grill, however, was more willing to share information about volume. “We used about 80 million pounds of avocados in our restaurants last year,” said Chris Arnold, head of public relations for the fast-casual giant. “We use about 48 avocados per batch of guacamole in our restaurants and make thousands of batches a day (we have 2,400 restaurants, and make guacamole from scratch in all of them every day).” So popular is the guacamole, said Arnold, “we’ve even published the recipe so people can make it themselves.”
Now it seems like everyone is in love with the green fruit. “I’ve rarely ever been with someone who didn’t like the avocado,” said Todd English, owner of MXDC and other restaurants around the globe. I asked him to recall his first encounter with the fruit. “I was on a farm, at a friend’s house in California. And they picked the avocado off the tree, in the warm sun, cut it in half, poured some olive oil made from that same farm, and sea salt, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, what is this?’ ” He was around 10 or 11 years old at the time. “It was like pudding, you know? It was like avocado pudding.”
As to whether our yearning for the avocado is a fad, English replied, “No, no. It’s not going anywhere.” Someday, he said, “We’re going to rub it on us. We’re going to stick it everywhere.” He was joking, but some people already swear by avocado-based massage oil, fragrances, and skin- and hair-care products. What’s next? Jewelry made of avocado pits? Avocado couture? It sounds crazy, but so does paying $13 for avocado toast.
