🥑SUPPLY UPDATE
In a nutshell the national production figures for last week were as follows:
· Week 30, 2024 - The industry saw a 8.13% decrease on the previous week’s harvest with a total of 436,720 tray equivalents harvested and transported (approx 40,000 less tray equivalents) on Week 29, 2024 production.
Production across the country saw Central Queensland resume the lead in production accounting for 58.25% of the total volume, North Queensland accounting for a further 20.16%, then a growing supply from Central NSW accounting for 9.37%, South Queensland with 6.80% and finally WA/NT, TNR and Sunshine Coast with harvests accounting for 2.13%; 1.61% and 1.52% respectively. Whilst North Qld has had a share of the cold weather in the last few weeks, luckily we only have 2-3 weeks more of our NQ season remaining. Our grower partner, Cherry Creek Estates in the SE corner of the state has experienced a few light frosts which has impacted some blocks, overall fruit quality is looking good with a size average of 23 expected - packing is underway - whilst our grower partners located in and around Barham/Cobram have been hit with some icy weather, not just the bitter cold but several frosts have been experienced which has unfortunately caused a percentage of crop damage. Dry matter tests conducted on fruit from 3 year old trees have been gradually improving week on week, with results a week ago reaching harvestable maturity of 23.2%. One of our farms in this regions is looking to commence picking at the end of this week, whilst the others are holding off under later this month before commencement.
We took some time to visit a few of our growers this week in the west, with another trip planned later this month. A number of growers confirmed how dry the weather has been; with many farms greatly in the need of rain - thankfully last week they received 40-50mm, but dams are still in need of more water for the season ahead. Fruit that we saw on trees is looking good, it is sizing nicely with reported dry matter results for younger trees already in the 24-25% dry matter range. If you are interested in BOM’s long term weather forecast, covering August to October, please highlight and click on the below U-Tube link:
https://youtu.be/GHakC1_zsQQ?list=PLbKuJrA7Vp7naJL31deES8QAV5E0q6U_H
· It is forecast that a total of some 403,000 tray equivalents will be despatched this week (Week 31) nationally, with the majority of this being hass. Production for the next three week period thereafter, is expected to fall within the range of 292 to 382K tray equivalents per week. North Qld and Central Queensland are expected to continue supplying the majority of available fruit through until early to mid August, even though supply has slowly started to come from the other major growing regions: including Central NSW, Tri-states and WA.
In terms of Avocado retail in the major supermarkets in Qld and WA this week we saw shelf prices as follows - Aldi’s Hass this week holding steady with shelf tickets at $1.99 each; Coles Qld stores visited had Hass avos at $2.20ea, and Woolworths Qld with Hass at $2.20ea.
AVOCADO SNAPSHOT