Few raw foods are as rich, creamy and buttery as the avocado. The green fruit is full of good fats, the kinds your body requires for strength. Avocado is such a smart ingredient because it can be sliced, diced, mashed or blended.
Many people love the creamy, green avocado flesh. This is why world production of avocados is now over a million tons a year. The avocado has even gotten local names in some countries. By whatever name, avocados are energy foods. They are rich sources of fiber, potassium, vitamins C, E, and K, carotenoid antioxidants.
Ethiopia Avocado Export
The Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA) says avocado has risen in the basket of agricultural goods that Ethiopia sells to the world. Ethiopia exported almost 3,000 tons of avocado in 2020 according to figures from UN Comtrade. This is the highest in four years because its last avocado exports were in 2016. The fruit netted the country about US1 million dollars in export earnings.
Since Ethiopia is a landlocked country, it transports avocados to overseas markets via air. But in 2020, Ethiopia sent out its first shipment of avocados by train from Modjo Dry Port. The refrigerated container with 24 tons of avocado took a 750km journey to the Port of Djibouti. It was then shipped from Djibouti to Europe, taking around 30 days.
This was a pilot project of the National Cool Logistics Network, a partnership between the governments of Ethiopia, Djibouti and the Netherlands. This consignment was a milestone in the development of a cold chain logistics corridor for the export of avocados by sea freight via the Port of Djibouti.
In 2021, another shipment of Ethiopian avocados grown by local cooperatives of more than 100 farmers was shipped to Europe. The main destinations for Ethiopian avocados are:
- The Netherlands
- United Kingdom (UK)
- Belgium
- United Arab Emirates (UAE)
- Saudi Arabia
Avocado Suppliers in Ethiopia
Here is a top avocado exporter in Ethiopia
Freshela Exporters
Freshela is a company that engages in the sourcing, processing and exporting of avocados and other fresh produce such as mango, pineapple, banana, vegetables and herbs.
Freshela is a proud exporter of Ethiopian avocados. Our avocados are organically grown in the most ideal climatic conditions in Ethiopia.
We source avocados from outgrowers. Our outgrowers are proud and happy working with us.
Our avocados are cultivated with uncompromising dedication to excellence and freshness. We guarantee optimum maturity of avocados.
We give competitive pricing to our customers.
We use a modern grading machine to achieve desired avocado weight. The fruit is also graded to eliminate any with physical quality defects.
We pack avocado fruit in 4kg cartons for both air and sea freights. We use dry wooden pallets to pack the cartons. Each pallet for sea freight takes 276 cartons while each pallet for air freight takes 144 cartons.
All of our avocado packing is approved by FDA and is certified by HACCP Quality Assurance.
The avocados in our pack house go through accurate machine selection. The avocados are classified according to dry meter, size, colour and external skin defects.
After packing, we pre-cool our avocados to 5°C in our cold rooms. This reduces field heat immediately after packing.
This process conserves the weight of our avocados preventing them from softening, water loss and wilting. Long shelf life is guaranteed because our avocados stay fresh throughout the supply chain. Our customers are happy because of the high quality of avocado we deliver.
The pre-cooling process is in preparation for shipping. We maintain the cold temperatures and achieve consistent preservation by loading close to the cold rooms.
Our trained staff properly seal the refrigerated containers. Our quality assurance team then confirms before the containers leave the pack house. The avocados are now ready for export.
We ship in controlled atmosphere (CA) refrigerated containers (reefer.) We ship Ethiopian avocados to Europe and the Middle East.
By working directly with avocado growers and cooperatives, we are able to deliver our produce within a short lead time. We believe that growers grow and exporters export. That is how our growers are able to do what they do best and in return we guarantee superior, quality produce.
Opportunities for Avocado Sector in Ethiopia
Here are some of the opportunities in the blossoming avocado industry in Ethiopia that are open to avocado exporters:
- Modernization of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway will enable transportation of more avocados to export markets via sea freight. The 750km railway line that connects Addis Ababa to the Port of Djibouti has reduced transport costs and transit time from seven days to 10
- The government of Ethiopia plans to construct a cold chain facility at Modjo Dry Port. This is where avocados will be collected and loaded into refrigerated containers.
- The Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE) has started buying its own refrigerated (reefer) containers to increase the number of avocados it ships out of the country.
- The government of Ethiopia has begun developing infrastructure, dubbed Cool Port Addis, to offer cold chain logistics services. Apart from a cold chain facility at Modjo Dry Port, it will also build a national and regional distribution center. It will also build a new logistics center in the Port of Djibouti.
- The Ministry of Transport of Ethiopia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a private logistics company, in 2021, to develop the Ethiopian side of the Berbera corridor. This trade route will give avocado exporters in Ethiopia more opportunities to reach international markets. This partnership involves upgrading the road linking the highway on the Ethiopian side to the border town of Tog Wajaale to the Port of Berbera in Somaliland. It also includes dry ports, silos, warehouses, container yards, cool and cold chain depots, freight forwarding and clearing activities.
- The demand for Ethiopian avocados in the export market is growing fast. According to the head of the EHPEA, the association receives over a dozen requests from buyers in Europe and the Middle East weekly, each interested in buying an average of 20 tons of avocado.