CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



33 



When I was requested to speak to you on some of the problems of 

 the market and I began to come in contact with the people who were in 

 the business and beg-an to learn something of the avocado besides having 

 had it in salad, I began seriously to ponder upon the subject, the obstacles 

 and the problems, and I am frank to say to you that I come before you, 

 after a week of that sort of mental thought, in a very different frame of 

 mind than I had when the subject first came to me. 



I have realized the desirability of the avocado as a food. Last fall 

 I was in Florida and Louisiana and there I enjoyed the avocado very 

 much and in fact first learned to eat it. 



The first problem in California with the avocado, is to put it where 

 the average man can eat it. I have looked at acovados on the bill 

 of fare at 75 cents and a dollar, and I thought they would be fine if I had 

 a million dollars, but they did not mean anything to me at that price in 

 the selection of a meal. 



I have compared the launching of your industry with that of the 

 California citrus industry, when the California industry came face to face 

 with a marketing problem, with over-production, without the present sys- 

 tem of distribution then in existence, and with absolutely no organization. 

 There was a period when fruit was scarce, prices high, and speculators 

 numerous. At this time the fruit went to the consumers at satisfactory 

 prices to the producer. Then there came a period when the entire condi- 

 tion was reversed, when the market was always over-supplied, the distribu- 

 tion was imperfect, and the prices were nothing. Then the speculative 

 element that had bought the fruit the previous year was entirely absent, 

 except to handle fruit on commission. 



You have in your organization a lot of people I did not know were 

 growing avocados, but I see them in this room — men who will go at any- 

 thing with a determination to carry it through to a successful business- 

 like conclusion, so I know your organization has started out all right. 



I jotted down a few things that seemed to me particularly pertinent 

 to the launching of the marketing campaign of a new perishable fruit 

 industry, as you have to recognize that the avocado is perishable. It 

 seems to me that you are situated geographically in the production of this 

 product, in a most favorable location. We have here each year thousands 

 of visitors, — the best people of the entire world — to whom if you take 

 the proper steps locally, you can present your product in a favorable 

 manner. It means a great deal to be able to present to a customer — be- 

 cause they are customers — your article under favorable conditions. I be- 

 lieve that more has been done in the introduction of California ripe olives 

 throug'h the fact that after the visitors from elsewhere eat the olive here 

 and acquire the habit here, they use them on their tables and tell their 

 friends about them. I believe more has been done in that way than by any 

 one thing, and I think this is a very important thing in connection with 

 the avocado campaign. 



See that your local market is supplied with good fruit, fruit you are 

 proud of as growers. See that your restaurant and hotel people, who use 

 them, know how to prepare them. I am frank to say that the few times 

 I have eaten an avocado in an eating-place in Los Angeles, I have been 



