The multinational avocado supplier Westfalia Fruit recently announced that its first consignment of 200kg of Tanzanian avocados arrived in Mumbai in January aboard an Air Tanzania plane.
The air freight follows the access for Tanzanian avocados to India that was announced in November 2021.
A further 60 tonnes have subsequently been airfreighted into India by Westfalia followed by several sea freight containers.
Westfalia said that prior to opening its doors to Tanzania, India was only able to import avocados from New Zealand and Peru, at high airfreight costs.
“Now that Westfalia has begun shipping containers of avocados through Mombasa Port, Indian consumers can access avocado at a more affordable rate in retail stores,” the company said, noting that shipments by sea take less than nine days to reach Mumbai.
With the arrival of the first sea freight container in India, Westfalia hosted a trade launch in Mumbai to introduce Tanzanian-grown Westfalia avocados to representatives of some of the country’s largest retailers.
The combination of Tanzanian supply with local Indian production will also ensure that India’s upper and middle-class shoppers of 180 million now have year-round access to affordable avocados, Westfalia Fruit explains, adding that the extra-large Hass avocados that tend to grow on Westfalia’s northern Tanzanian farms have proved to be very popular with Indian consumers.
Tanzania Avocados
Tanzania is the third largest avocado producer in Africa, after South Africa and Kenya.
The popular avocado varieties produced in Tanzania are Hass, Fuerte, Pinkerton, and, to some extent, Puebla.
To seize the opportunity represented by the increasing international demand for avocados, Tanzania established an avocado cluster in the northern zone regions in May 2021.
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