Guac war! Mexican president weighs into US avocado blockade and says REAL reason for suspending imports is because they taste better than American equivalent and NOT because US food inspector was threatened by cartel
Mexico's president launched an avocado war of words against the US after the suspension of one of his country's most profitable exports, claiming the ban is a conspiracy by President Joe Biden to protect American producers from losing to 'quality' Mexican products.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador dismissed the threat received by a US health inspector that led to last week's suspension of avocado exports as a ruse.
'The truth is there is always something else behind it, an economic or commercial interest, or a political attitude,' López Obrador said.
'They don't want Mexican avocados to get into the United States, right, because it would rule in the United States because of its quality.'
The suspension has creating an impending avocado crisis in the US, with supply of the popular staple sold at fast-food restaurants and finer dining establishments expected to run out in the next two weeks.
The US has not elaborated on the threats the American inspector received and has has not stated when the suspension would end.
Mexico's robust avocado industry has for years been under threat by drug cartels stealing from the lucrative farms.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said US ban on Mexico's avocados was part of conspiracy by President Joe Biden to protect American growers from Mexican competition
The US gets the vast majority of its avocados from Mexico. Without the imports, it's force to rely on California for the green fruit, which typically provides only 13 per cent of the supply
Avocado prices have reached $26.23 per nine-kilogram box, the standard of transportation
The US halted imports of avocados from Michoacán, Mexico, the sole Mexican provider of the fruit for America. Experts warn the suspension would deplete America's avocado supply and cause prices to increase further after prices doubled since 2021
Michoacán is the only Mexican state allowed to export avocados to the United States
The suspension comes after a US inspector at a Michoacán facility received threatening phone call. Violence runs rampant in the Mexican state where farmers have armed themselves to guard checkpoints at the facilities to ward off the cartel
Eight out of 10 avocados purchased in the US come from Michoacán, Mexico, the only state in the country that the US imports from since 1997 because the fruits are certified to be free of dangerous pests that could threaten American agriculture.
In the past six weeks, Michoacán has exported more than 135 thousand tons of avocados to the US, the Mexican government said. The state is the world's largest avocado exporter, yielding nearly $3 billion a year for Mexico.
The US said it has reached a deal that could allow avocados from the neighboring Mexican state of Jalisco to be exported to the US later this year.
The US health inspector was allegedly threatened by someone in a neighboring state after he blocked their shipment of avocados, leading to the ban being imposed on February 11.
The ban has caused panic among restaurant owners and suppliers.
Steve Taft, president of Eco Farms in California, said he has been hearing from wholesale clients worried about running out the key ingredient for menu items like guacamole, avocado toast and Cobb salad.
Michoacán is 'the big bully on the block. They dictate the market, so we have to be careful not to get carried away,' Taft said, according to Bloomberg.
He expects prices to rise by as much as 25 percent depending on the length of the ban.
Avocado prices hit $26.23 per nine-kilogram box, double what they cost last year. The price is nearing the highest in two decades, behind only a brief spike above $30 last July because of global demand and the end of the growing season in Mexico.
Guacamole lovers have seen the price of a single avocado rise to as much as $2.50 at some supermarkets from just $1.24 last month. They cost 99 cents in January 2021.
It could soon be worse for those dining out.
Jonny Hernandez, a San Antonio restaurateur who owns 11 eateries, told Kens5 he has enough avocados for two weeks and expects dishes featuring the food to increase by 50 percent.
'It'll start affecting prices tomorrow,' he said. 'We're already dealing with labor and supply issues... That is going to compound everything.'
Alfonso Brito, who owns two Mexican eateries in Utah, said his businesses were already reeling from the pandemic, so the coming supply crunch will serve as yet another blow to his livelihood.
He told KJZZ that prices have been fluctuating everyday, and he expects things to get worse.
'It raised like 50 to 60 percent,' he said. 'I can find avocados for 48 dollars today, but then next it's like 58 and then next day it's 80 dollars.'
Brito added that he has had to get creative to make the most of his limited avocado supplies, testing out new guacamole recipes not made from avocados.
'You have to tell your customers that it's not guacamole,' Brito said. 'It's not avocados, it's zucchini, but also it's a great option, you know. Also with the cactus or the spinach.'
Some restaurants may run out of avocados faster than others, with Piero Sanchez, manager of the Baja Cantina in Los Angeles, saying supplies may run out for smaller restaurants in two to three days.
'Realistically we have enough for two to three days until we start to see our pricing kind of change,' Sanchez told Reuters.
'For us, we'll find a viable solution. We'll find a substitute. Or even that if we need to take a hit, we'll take it. But we're hoping this crisis or this situation ends very soon and we can get more supply out here and give restaurants a break.'
Francisco Garcia, owner of La Casa Garcia in Anaheim, California, said he's already seen prices skyrocket. He is preparing to pay $150 per case of avocados compared to when he used to pay $30 last year.
'[I spend] three to four hundred dollars for all the avocados,' Garcia told CBS LA about his usual supply. 'If they raise it, it will be $2,000.'
Despite the rising costs, the restaurateur vowed not to raise the prices for his customers, who he said were like family.
'They've been paying $4 to $5 a guacamole,' he said. 'I ain't going to raise it $25 to $30. People ain't going to buy it… They're my customer for years and years. I'll take the loss.'
Mission Produce, the biggest distributor of avocados in the U.S., said the company is doing what it can to 'mitigate the impact as much as possible,' including trying to source for additional product around the world.
The Dominican Republic is the next largest avocado producer in the world, but the majority of its harvest is sold within the country.
The US only imports about 1 percent of its total supply from the Dominican Republic. After Mexico, the country gets most its avocados from California and Florida.
Although the US created the original Hass avocado that most enjoy around the world, Mexico replicated the fruit and harvests it in much greater volume, shipping out about 1.5 million tons a year. By comparison, California produces only 188 thousand tons a year.
Raul Lopez, the Mexico manager of the market research company Agtools, told the Washington Post that prices would only continue to rise as the US depletes its avocado supply amid the suspension.
'In a few days, the current inventory will be sold out and there will be a lack of product in almost any supermarket,' Lopez said.
'The consumer will have very few products available, and prices will rise drastically.'
Chipotle Mexican Grill said it has enough supply to last about a month.
'We're working closely with our suppliers to navigate through this challenge,' the company's Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung said in a statement.
'Our sourcing partners currently have several weeks of inventory available, so we'll continue to closely monitor the situation and adjust our plans accordingly,' Hartung said.
The company did not say how much the prices for its dishes that use avocados would go up, only that the company has already been contending with higher costs.
Avocado prices are expected to increase in the coming days and then see a dramatic spike as the US avocado supply is depleted
Restaurateurs are preparing for the price hike as Baja Cantina owner Piero Sanchez warned that smaller restaurants could run out of their usual supply in days. Pictured, Sanchez's head chef, Daniel Donis, preparing a bowl of guacamole
Taco Bell said it would be able to avoid impacts from the suspension due to how it gets its guacamole.
'Taco Bell is not impacted by the US halting avocado imports from Mexico. We import guacamole and not whole avocados, which is not impacted by the current ban,' the company explained in a statement.
Moe's Southwest Grill, another popular Mexican-food chain in the US, did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
The US halted the avocado shipments after the health worker had been carrying out an inspection in Uruapan, a city in Michoacán, a gang-plagued region that's among Mexico's deadliest states. It has for decades been used as a drug-trafficking hub and the situation has only worsened amid frequent armed struggles for power between rival cartels.
Health officials did not disclose the specific nature of the threat, but it was serious enough to pause imports pending the results of an investigation by the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and and Department of Agriculture, the statement said.
Lopez told the Post the inspector had allegedly found avocados from the state of Puebla in the Michoacán facility that were intended to be exported to the US, which is not allowed.
'The people from the facility tried to intimidate and then [threaten] the inspector, so he reported it to the USDA, then they decided to pull out all the inspectors and close the border indefinitely,' Lopez explained.
Mexican drug cartel members have been for years threatening members of the lucrative avocado industry.
Michoacán growers in 2019 began taking up arms to protect themselves against thieves and drug cartels robbing them of their 'green gold,' using AR-15 rifles to defend themselves against deadly cartels.
Soaring US consumption has lifted the region out of poverty in the past decade, with Mexico in 2020 exporting more than $2.7billion of the fruit, according to Statista.
But the cash flow has also brought growing rates of extortion, kidnapping, and avocado theft.
The situation has become so dangerous that hundreds of avocado growers have formed a self-defense group called Pueblos Unidos to protect their fields.
It isn't the first time the US Department of Agriculture's officials have been threatened.
Francisco Garcia, owner of La Casa Garcia in Anaheim, California, said he's already seen prices skyrocket as he is preparing to pay $150 per case of avocados, triple what they were last year
A a bullet hole is pictured on the window of a house, in El Aguaje, Michoacán in Mexico, on February 9, 2022, a region that's become overwhelmed by drug violence
In August 2019, a team of inspectors were 'directly threatened' in Ziracuaretiro, a town just west of Uruapan in Michoacán. While the agency didn't specify what happened, local authorities said a gang robbed the truck the inspectors were traveling in at gunpoint.
The US lifted a ban on Mexican avocados in 1997, decades after it was implemented in 1914 to prevent weevils, scabs and pests from entering U.S. orchards.
The dangerous situation in gang-controlled Michoacán was again highlighted in January, when footage showed drug cartels using drones to drop explosives onto inhabitants of a Tepalcatepec forest.
It was the latest demonstration of unchecked violence in the region as the drones, controlled by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, rained down explosives on the shacks.
Footage from the attack emerged just weeks after the nearby city of Chinicuila in Michoacán reported that roughly half of its population fled, many illegally into the US, to escape the cartel's violence.
The rise in avocado prices come as wholesale inflation in the US surged again last month, rising 9.7 percent from a year earlier in another sign that price pressures remain high at all levels of the economy.
The producer price index for final demand, which measures inflation before it reaches consumers, jumped 1 percent last month after climbing just 0.4 percent in December, the Labor Department said on Tuesday.
Companies facing higher wholesale and raw materials costs have shown no hesitation to pass along the higher prices to consumers, and the latest data suggests that further increases are coming at the retail level.
With consumer price increases hitting a 40-year high of 7.5 percent last month, President Joe Biden faces plunging approval ratings ahead of the midterm elections, and is now considering a plan to suspend the gasoline tax for a year to provide angry voters relief at the pump.
Last week, the government reported that inflation at the consumer level soared over the past year at its highest rate in four decades, squeezing households, wiping out pay raises and reinforcing the Federal Reserve's decision to begin raising borrowing rates.
Michoacán growers in 2019 began taking up arms to protect themselves against thieves and drug cartels robbing them of their 'green gold,' using AR-15 rifles to defend themselves against deadly cartels
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