Avocados: What You Didn’t Know About the Super Bowl Food
Why are avocados, and especially guacamole dip, considered a required food for Super Bowl Parties? What’s the background?
Californian Avocados
California, which has 60,000 acres of avocado orchards, has an avocado growing season running from March through August… not exactly friendly to the date of the Super Bowl. The popular “Hass” variety does not ripen until March. So where do Super Bowl Avocados come from?
Mexican Avocados
In the run-up to the Super Bowl, 75% of all avocados shipped to the U.S. come from Mexico, the rest come from Chile. American appetites during Super Bowl this year crave over 80 million pounds of avocados, and it has increased tenfold in the last two decades. Avocados’ history goes back thousands of years to Mesoamerica.
What Changed with Avocados?
In 1994 NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) opened the U.S. market to Mexican-grown avocados. The Mexican Avocado industry began promoting guacamole as a Super Bowl food.
By far, Mexico is the largest exporter to the U.S., mostly from the western Mexican state of Michoacán. Indeed, in the first…