With a strong usage of Mexican handhelds including tacos, burritos and quesadillas, Cinco de Mayo represents another key consumption occasion for us to engage with shoppers, said Stephanie Bazan, vice president of shopper and trade marketing for Avocados From Mexico (AFM).

Cinco is on a Friday in 2023, and AFM is keeping the good going all weekend long with its “Cinco de Weekend” shopper marketing campaign.

“We’re creating a 3-day event where shoppers will get the chance to enter to win 12 weekend getaway trips in a year. Our campaign will feature eye catching thematic displays, POS and consumer savings to drive consumption. Retailers can also utilize our merchandising materials to create a fiesta themed Cinco event for their shoppers.”

California growers expect a 2023 crop that’s a bit smaller than in 2022, said Jan DeLyser, vice president of marketing for the Irvine-based California Avocado Commission (CAC). Given the law of averages, California shippers will likely see a greater percentage of larger sizes than in 2022, when an abnormally large amount of fruit was harvested early in the year.

The California crop continues to be dominated by the Hass variety, which should continue to make up more than 90% of all fruit shipped from the state in 2023, DeLyser said.

Lamb Hass is the second largest variety by volume, and shipments of GEM avocados should be up significantly from last year.

Consumers like to purchase both bulk avocados and bagged avocados, DeLyser said. Other types of packages have been tried, but none have approached the success of bags, which continue to grow.

California shippers like bags because it gives them a chance to prominently display the fruit’s origins.

“We encourage retailers and packers to prominently feature the California avocado origin in season on avocado bags,” DeLyser said. “This encourages purchases because nearly two-thirds of avocado shoppers in the west (and 59% in the total US) say they would be a little or a lot more likely to buy bagged avocados if they saw California on the label.”