Ripe and ready: how ‘evil geniuses’ got us hooked on avocados

In the 80s, people bit into their tough green skin and complained they didn’t taste like pears. Now you can’t go near Instagram without seeing someone’s mushy brunch – and demand for avocados is outstripping supply

Think back to when you saw your first avocado. If you were born before the advent of Instagram, perhaps it was in the supermarket, exotic and dark and knobbly as a dragon’s egg. Maybe you, or your parents, attempted a chi-chi dinner party some time in the 1980s, and served up halves so hard that, once you had eaten the flaccid prawn cocktail filling, you needed to saw through them with a steak knife. It seems impossible, now that you can’t go on Instagram without seeing someone’s mushy brunch, but there was a time before everyone was eating avocados. Now, avocado toast is so ubiquitous you can get it in McDonald’s; so mainstream is the green fruit that the fashion world has declared it “overcado”. But the rest of us, the ones who haven’t heard that the avocado is newly uncool, are only just getting started.

This could become a problem. An article in the Grocer warns that demand is outstripping supply, which has been made worse because of poor harvests in avocado-producing countries. Reynolds, a leading fruit and vegetable supplier, has seen about 30% growth in demand for avocado in the past year (before, it was growing by about 10% a year). “We have almost unprecedented demand,” says Steve Rudge, the head of procurement. “Normally that wouldn’t be a problem. But we’re coming off the back end of the Peruvian season, and it’s not been a classic season.”

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from Health & wellbeing | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1Nm5IWX
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