UPDATE: 3/5/14 Chipotle spokesman walks back the claim, see below.
Chipotle warns global warming may force it to stop serving guacamole.
Yes, that’s an actual headline. Too bad they didn’t do a little research first.
This story is from the excitable kids at Climate Progress, who are paid to make you worry about these things:
The guacamole operation at Chipotle is massive. The company uses, on average, 97,000 pounds of avocado every day to make its guac — which adds up to 35.4 million pounds of avocados every year. And while the avocado industry is fine at the moment, scientists are anticipating drier conditions due to climate change, which may have negative effects on California’s crop. Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, for example, predict hotter temps will cause a 40 percent drop in California’s avocado production over the next 32 years. [Climate Progress]
No comment so far from Taco Bell, Chevy’s Fresh Mex, Del Taco, El Toro and many other Mexican food restaurant chains in the USA. (Added: for our overseas readers, this is Chipotle, apparently the news about the Guacamole crisis wasn’t important enough for their press feed)
But if the crisis worsens, expect Guacamole smugglers to fill in the vacuum.
Oh, wait, most avocados don’t come from California:
![avocado1[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/avocado11.gif)
Mexico accounts for half of world trade
Nearly half of all internationally traded avocados are from Mexico (table 2). It came to nearly 500,000 tonnes valued at 0.9 billion dollars in 2012. Export increases every year, but the increase from 2010 to 2011 was very substantial. Three quarters of Mexican export is directed at their northern neighbour, the USA. Last year, 370,000 tonnes of Mexican produce went across their northern border. Japan bought a lot more Mexican avocados last year than previously: 50,000 tonnes. Canada is their third largest customer. Mexico exports about 30% of its production (table 3).
Number two producer Chile brings 30% of its production to the international trade, with the USA as their most important customer as well, and the Netherlands as number two on that list (table 4). Peru exports 40% of its production, most of it to Europe, with the Netherlands as their most important customer, followed by Spain. 2012 showed growth again, after export remained stable in the years leading up (table 5). Israel is a relatively small producer, but almost the entire harvest (90%) is sold abroad. After a big drop in export in 2011, 2012 saw an increase in export, namely 60,000 tonnes. France, the Netherlands and Russia are important customers (table 8). The Dutch (re)export is mainly aimed at Germany, but Sweden also buys a lot. France, Denmark and Norway are also important customers for the Dutch trade (table 6a).
USA biggest importer, Netherlands second
The United States are by far the biggest avocado importers. The 500,000 tonnes mark was passed in 2012. The majority comes from neighbouring Mexico (table 14). The Netherlands are the world’s second largest import market. Import statistics show that it came to 96,000 tonnes valued at 190 million dollars in 2012. South Africa, Chile and Peru each supplied just under 20,000 tonnes last year. The South African import shows quite a few fluctuations from year to year. Chile and Peru provide more each year (table 15a). According to South African and Peruvian export statistics more is shipped to the Netherlands than (Dutch) import statistics show. This is partially explained by trade going to the Netherlands through other countries, such as France, Spain and Germany. As an importer, France is almost as important as the Netherlands. This country imported 95,000 tonnes in 2012. Spain is their most important supplier, followed by Peru and Israel (table 15b).
Source: http://www.freshplaza.com/article/110214/Avocado-market-still-growing,-Holland-plays-big-role-in-it
h/t to Tom Nelson for the CP link and Steve Milloy for the fun title.
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BOTTOM LINE:
1. This is mostly a marketing ploy by Chipotle i.e. “come get now what you may not be able to get later”.
2. If it ever comes to pass that Chipotle can’t get “locally sourced produce” (I wonder how they get Avocados at the Chipotle in Portland, Maine?) they’ll opt to have them imported in order to keep customers coming in. Profit rules those decisions.
3. added 3/5/14 Told ya so:
Chipotle stirred up the media and guacamole lovers with news that it could “suspend” guacamole from its menu due to global warming.
But a restaurant spokesman tells the Los Angeles Times: “This is way overblown.”
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The weirdest part about this is that avocados have never been cheaper or more abundant as they are right now. They’re only 62 cents at WalMart. Ten years ago they were $1.25.
Here’s a link to the Yahoo Finance thread on this topic (following a 1-minute video):
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/hot-stock-minute/no-more-guacamole-143253528.html
Here’s what the most recent commenter said:
McDonalds is a rather large investor in Chipotle, though they have been rather careful to keep the total owership below 50%. McDs also provided most of their startup financing, & does their shipping & procurement. So technically McDs doesn’t own ’em outright, but for all practical purposes it’s McDonalds who will or will not be able to afford to have avocadoes shipped here from Kenya or Indonesia or Swaziland or Burma or Greenland or where ever the testesfruit* is being grown in 20 years.
*man, them things are wrinkly, ain’t they?
At least this will offer some relief to Mexico with their most important cash crop (marijuana) in legal jeopardy (i.e. becoming legal).
“Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, for example, predict hotter temps will cause a 40 percent drop in California’s avocado production over the next 32 years.”
Yes but the top-down organic-local-only-low-water-use sustainable agricultural legislation can easily do it in one Five Year Plan.
Anyways, everyone knows California’s sole fame and contribution to gourmet Mexican food is Baja Fresh.
1. Climate models predicted the rise and fall of Hitler.
2. Climate models predicted Justin Bieber’s downfall.
3, Climate models predicted that Chipolte’s would stop serving Guac and…..
Just because climate models failed to predict no atmospheric warming for 17 years, 6 month you deniers decide to “cherry pick” and say the models don’t work. Pathetic…
Eric Simpson (Mar 4 7:46pm)- Do MacDonald’s even use apple in anything?
We are regular consumers of avocados. Unless you want to buy your avocados from Whole Foods, they are pretty cheap and have been for quite a few months now.
Funny, when we lived there, they were called “Lawrence Live No More Labs”, I guess this latest pronouncement will do nothing to hinder that….
On the other hand, there was a nice Chevy’s in Pleasanton, with a geek-magnet tortilla-making machine….right up there with Legoland’s pizza-making machine (OK, pizza purists are probably appalled, but the pizza wasn’t THAT bad, and it was fun to watch the machine in action)…
The best guaco is home made, with fresh Avocados (that’s the hard part here in Germany – they seem to go from unripe to rotten in some sort of fruit-sublimation process), finely diced tomatoes and onions, a little garlic, salt, pepper, lime juice, Tabasco…mash away, add Margaritas and Tacos on the side…ahhhhh
I’ve seen Avocados here from Israel, Peru, Holland, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa…greenhouse fresh versus farm-grown “store ripe”….sigh…wonder if they’d grow on the warm side of Scotland (someone told me they could grow bananas there…not sure if he was having me on or not…)…
Just thinking, with all of these, er, well-travelled (but unripe) Avocados making their way into stores here, maybe there should be another CAMRA over here….CAMpaign for Ripe Avocados…..
So, no mention of lettuce, pork, beef, tomatoes, Capsicum, flour, corn, & any of two dozen other things that could be impacted[sic] by climate change, even though they’re so thorough about all this & that’s why they brought it up, yeah? I mean, we had a late freeze a decade ago that killed off enough of the tomato crop on Arkansas to quadruple prices, but I guess abnormal freezes are just weather.
In any case, the availability of water in California is mostly political, not environmental (seeing as how there’s already not enough, & they have to pipe it in). & given the state of the avocado sector of the economy, I’d guess it’ll be just fine if California gets out of the produce business & goes back to doing what they do best: creating murdering, marxist loons.
“Dave N says:
March 4, 2014 at 5:46 pm
Layne says:
March 4, 2014 at 3:35 pm
I know it’s junk food, but I prefer Chili’s anyway
Chili’s have (I hope they still do) these “southern egg rolls”. They told me they buy them frozen from a supplier (not sure if they mentioned the name). Those things are great! I want the recipe :-)”
COSTCO 🙂
“Charlie Johnson (@SemperBanU) says:
March 4, 2014 at 7:43 pm
FWIW – I had an avocado orchard in San Diego County until about 8 years ago. What killed avocado production in Southern California? Mexican avocados were allowed in the country (they weren’t for a very long time despite NAFTA – the excuse was pest control, which wasn’t really the case) and water. Water in California used to be cheap but, with more and more people, the price goes up for farmers and they move on to other crops.
It has nothing to due with climate change – avocados are a rare find in SD County without an irrigation system (although I have a cluster of 7 trees that thrive on a natural spring that waters them year round).”
Many, many, many years ago, Avocado “farming” was a tax shelter, at least in California….then Avos became cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper, until they hit sort of an Avocado-event-horizon and the market collapsed on itself…I suspect the production was FAR above what the current levels are…I think this was the late 70s, so the weather was probably about the same….(and the climate as well….)
“FreddyB says:
March 4, 2014 at 7:45 pm
How about the Netherlands gobbling up 11.4 pounds of avocado per capita??? I’m taking my sombrero if I ever go…”
Be sure to go to an Indonesian Reistafel (sp?) as well…they have a LOT of interesting dishes…
They seem to have the best handle on Mexican food over here…a number of good online shops, and when they say something is “muy picante”….it is…not like here in “beautiful downtown Deutschland” (for those who remember Johnny Carson and beautiful downtown Burbank)…but in South Germany it seems more “spicy not hot”…hey, it’s great here…just a shortage of Tex-Mex, warming or not….
P.S. Thanks for borrowing our normally COLD winter….saved a bit on the heating bill this year 🙂
P.P.S. Hope everyone’s OK….cold is wayyyyyy more of a problem than warm….
Mainstream media shoots self in the foot, again.
They run a silly bogus story with no fact checking and then have to retract. And they played right into Chipotle’s hands by providing a boatload of advertizing for zero revenue.
Shame on all the participants in this shameless publicity stunt.
As an aside, has anyone calculated the aggregate volume of greenhouse gases produced by guacamole induced farting? Just wonderin’…
“John S. says:
March 5, 2014 at 10:04 am
1. Climate models predicted the rise and fall of Hitler.
2. Climate models predicted Justin Bieber’s downfall.
3, Climate models predicted that Chipolte’s would stop serving Guac and…..
Just because climate models failed to predict no atmospheric warming for 17 years, 6 month you deniers decide to “cherry pick” and say the models don’t work. Pathetic…”
John, I hope you just forgot the tag on your post….otherwise I suggest you go upstairs and apologise to your
mother for wasting bandwidth on your internet connection.
As far as Hitler, there was no better than Carter, from Hogan’s Heroes…
“Mike Jonas says:
March 5, 2014 at 12:28 pm
Eric Simpson (Mar 4 7:46pm)- Do MacDonald’s even use apple in anything?”
Had a cherry pie there the other day….tasted like it had orange peel (or Cointreau[!]) in it….
Have a look at Quaker Instant Oatmeal sometime…love the stuff, but pear parts with flavoring
just aren’t the real thing….would rather pay more for the real deal…
Chipotle’s appears to be a response to Green Burrito (and Red Burrito) from Carl’s Jr.and Hardee’s who are Mexican-food subs. of the respective burger/food empires. Back in the day they served humongous portions of pretty good food (at least on trips from SJ to LA)…Taco Bell’s Border Bell (test?) restaurants were a step above, however…
(Sorry, don’t mean to turn this into a food thread….)…
It seems that my (non w3c compliant 🙂 ) tag was munched…I meant to have:
“John, I hope you just forgot the /sarc tag on your post….”
Oh well, sometimes the brackets just get in the way….
HEADLINE: THINGS MAY NOT ALWAYS BE THE SAME! FILM AT 11!
http://www.avocadosource.com/WAC1/WAC1_p088.htm
Has some production numbers from about 1987 for California and Florida. But also this interesting note:
So, for any given warming, we ought to be gaining production in places with freeze limited production ability. I would point out this includes more northern areas of California (where all the rain and water are located…)
I can speak to this personally, as Sunset Garden came out to the home of my wife’s family to inspect their avocado tree (a Bacon type) as they thought it was not possible to grow avocadoes in San Jose. Also in the yard of a college friend was a very mature avocado tree that made way too many avocadoes each year. Moral of story? You can grow SOME avocadoes here (mostly cool tolerant types) and any added warmth will just make it that much better for production!
Oh, and as of now, there’s a small Bacon Avocado tree in the yard that has been grown from seed from that parent tree and is about 6 years old. Likely to start bearing fruit soon…
Now, just one other side note or two…
First off, even back in 1987 production in California was about 176,000 short tons. Call it 352,560,400 pounds. Now look at Chipotle consumption… 97,000 lbs… so only 352,460,000 or so pounds left for everyone else and / or reduction of production. FWIW I think production has increased since ’87, but have not dug out the numbers…
In any case, the Cipotle consumption is an irrelevant smidge compared to even just California production levels, and any “warming” would increase usable land for Avocados (even inside California, but also including Texas).
Oh, and they are saying that more warmth causes LESS rain? I thought the current mantra was that more warmth caused MORE precipitation (thus the giant snow fall…). They really need to make up their minds…
WUWT says, “But a restaurant spokesman tells the Los Angeles Times: “This is way overblown.””
That is true, compared to Chipotle’s extremely negative ad campaign, “Farmed and Dangerous,” a little AGW “food security messaging”* is mere child’s play:
Boycott Chipotle: My Farm Is Not Dangerous
via thefoodiefarmer.blogspot.com
“Chipotle recently launched a new negative ad campaign called “Farmed and Dangerous” spewing propaganda about today’s modern farm families. Its a “comedy” that really isn’t funny, in fact its downright offensive and frankly really ignorant on their part. Its the moralistic view of food eliteism that somehow as a fast food chain, they’re superior in ethics, taste, and quality…. Really?
Myth: Chipotle wants you to believe that your food is produced by “industrial agriculture”
Fact: According to USDA “Ninety-seven percent of U.S. farms are family farms where the majority of the business is owned by the operator and individuals related to the operator.”
Myth: Chipotle wants you to believe that your food is produced by “factory farms”.
Fact: Our storage tanks for grain are about as “factory” as we get on our farm. Really, they’re akin to tupperware (of sorts) for many bushels of grain. Our equipment may make us more efficient, but it certainly doesn’t qualify us as a “factory”.
Myth: Chipotle wants you to believe that what we do is top secret to keep consumers in the
dark about what we are “really” doing on our farm.
Fact: Our business is wide open, you can drive by any day of the week and
witness for yourself what we are doing. In fact, we’ll give you a tour!
Chipotle is marketing itself based on its perceived sense of higher authority
and values in the food chain system.
My family is boycotting Chipotle.
No one in my family will ever eat at Chipotle’s again.”
*ref: Resourceguy says: This is another sign that the AGW BS campaign has shifted to food security warnings.
E.M.Smith says:
March 6, 2014 at 11:16 am
————————————–
There was/is a producing avocado tree in a backyard in San Francisco. It was a huge old tree around 40+ foot tall. I had a friend who lived in an adjacent building. All of the neighboring backyards had avocados dropping in their yards.