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It’s estimated that more than 105,000,000 POUNDS of avocados are eaten in America on Super Bowl Sunday. Avocado is the primary ingredient in guacamole, and guacamole is one of the most popular game day foods in our country.
Avocados come from a variety of places. They’re grown in California, Texas, Florida, and even Hawaii. But as of 2017, only 10% of all avocados eaten in America (guac included) were grown domestically. 10% comes from Chile, Peru, and the Dominican Republic while a staggering 80% of the avocados eaten in America were grown in Mexico.
Now, there’s an avocado crisis looming on the horizon due to a fuel shortage in Mexico which has left many truck drivers without gas.
According to Reuters, the Mexican government has attempted to fight years of fuel theft in their country by clamping down. This has caused a prolonged fuel shortage in the Central and Western states of Mexico which are being relied on to provide 120,000 tonnes of avocados (240,000,000 pounds) to America for Super Bowl Sunday.
That’s 20,000 more tonnes than last year or 40,000,000 more pounds of avocado than America ate for the 2018 Super Bowl.
“Our three most important weeks of the year are this one and the next two. This is when we ship for Super Bowl week,” said Ramon Paz, spokesman for APEAM, a business association representing Mexican avocado producers and exporters.
“We have from now to January 24, 25 to ship all that volume. If we don’t ship it (by then), we can’t do so later,” Paz said.
So far, 27,000 tonnes have been sent to the United States for the Super Bowl, which will be held on Feb. 3 in Atlanta, Georgia. The annual football championship is the most-watched U.S. television broadcast of the year, regularly drawing more than 100 million viewers. (via)
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Will your Super Bowl party be ruined if you don’t have guacamole? I can’t answer that question. Guac ranks pretty low on the list of foods I need to eat at a Super Bowl party. But I know that it ranks #1 for my wife and millions of guac-loving vegetarians across America who don’t care about things like chicken wings and hotdogs.
I don’t know if Avocados From Mexico will be running a 2019 Super Bowl ad yet but it’ll be pretty ironic if they do and there ends up being a massive avocado shortage in America. They’ll just be rubbing it in everyone’s faces.