National avocado quality and information management system (AV09001)

This is a final research report from Hort Innovation’s historical archives. Please note that as these reports may date back as far as the 1990s, the content and recommendations within them may be superseded by more recent research.

What was it all about?

This project was designed to expand on the work completed through AV06006 Scoping of a National Avocado Quality System and Management of Avocado Industry Information Systems. This included two key objectives:

• Ongoing coordination of the suite of supply chain projects that AV06006 managed or participated in. These and other projects provided industry with valuable information relating to a range of issues including internal fruit quality, fruit maturity and supply chain education to improve handling. This information enabled industry to identify and begin to rectify issues relating to fruit quality and irregular supply into the market. These factors strongly influenced consumer demand and industry’s ability to anticipate and meet that demand. Also through this project a Quality Management System (QMS) was to be developed and implemented to help ensure industry could meet consumer’s quality expectations.
• Ongoing management of Infocado, the avocado industry’s crop forecasting system and OrchardInfo, a system which collected production and productivity information. These two systems provided the industry and individual businesses with accurate data to assist industry and business decision making. The data included: long term production forecasts; short term crop forecasts and dispatch data; key planting statistics, and orchard productivity data. These systems required ongoing development, management and maintenance.

Throughout this project a number of activities were undertaken:

• Ongoing staff involvement in the suite of supply chain projects established through AV06006.
• Collection of crop flow data from avocado wholesalers and packhouses
• Weekly, quarterly and annual crop flow reports for all contributors to the Infocado system
• Collection of planting and orchard productivity data from avocado growers
• Investigation of methods for the implementation of a QMS

The Australian avocado industry was experiencing an extremely large growth phase in production at the time. Therefore, monitoring and communicating supply issues as well as ensuring a high quality product was delivered to consumers was paramount. In 2010/11 49,612 tonnes of avocados were produced, worth an estimated gross value of production (GVP) of $AUD207 million and $519 million at the retail level. Production for 2012/13 was forecast to be 59,686 tonnes of avocados.

It was vital that these programs and tools be continued and improved into the future to help ensure sustainable growth for the avocado industry.