What was it all about?

This project built on earlier work undertaken to establish the Infocado system – the industry’s crop monitoring and forecasting system.

Through Infocado, data is collected from packhouses and individual growers on actual and forecast amounts of fruit marketed in any one week including variety, destination, size and quantities. This information helps provide growers and the supply chain with greater transparency leading to improved efficiency and effectiveness.

This project developed a system to collect and distribute the weekly retail prices for avocados in major metropolitan Australian markets, delivering clearer supply and demand signals back to supply chain stakeholders.

From 2012 to 2015, the avocado industry experienced a growth surge of 16 per cent, but growers did not have a retail price reporting system to alert them to over-supply or a surge in demand. As part of this project, retail prices for the two main varieties, Hass and Shepard, were collected weekly from 64 stores across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. The data was sent to Infocado contributors and published on the Avocados Australia website.

Additional information collected included avocado variety, number of in-store displays, pack type, average fruit weights and country of origin. A comments window on the Avocados Australia website also enabled contractors to log their own observations of display and quality issues in stores.

Catalogue specials for the two major supermarkets Coles and Woolworths in each capital city were also displayed on the website. Between them, the two companies are responsible for 50 per cent of avocado sales.

The Infocado system, along with other important industry tools, continues to be maintained by investments in the Hort Innovation Avocado Fund.