As the 2020/2021 Florida tropical avocado season winds down, Brooks Tropicals has been supplementing supplies of the original tropical avocado branded SlimCado™ with fresh fruit from the Dominican Republic.
“We had a pretty good year in terms of crop-size here in Florida”, says Peter Leifermann, VP of Sales and Marketing at Brooks. “Although we may not quite make our industry-wide goal of bushels, each variety
produced a good crop and we were especially pleased with the late fall varieties. We have a few more months of Florida fruit to harvest but it will be limited. Our partnerships in the Dominican Republic have allowed us to serve our customers for the entire calendar year.”
To continue to meet growing consumer demand for tropical avocado, Brooks Tropicals has partners in the
Dominican Republic that grow and pack that country’s several varieties. Almost 30 years ago, Brooks and Agroindustria Ocoena, S.A. (AIOSA) struck a relationship that began with an avocado packing line and continues today with the shared generations of agricultural knowledge between the firms. Brooks Tropicals has been growing tropical avocado, fruits, and vegetables in the Caribbean and South Florida for nearly a hundred years and AIOSA began exporting in 1987. Brooks also has another decades-old partner in AMR-AGRO.
Similar to the Florida crop, the Dominican Republic has over 20 different varieties in production, but January begins the transition from a Lula and Semil dominant crop to the Carla variety. Carla tropical avocado are characterized by their more round shape – as opposed to pear-like – and being a late season variety, it’s higher oil content. “Tropical avocados are so near perfect, it’s like they take into consideration our diets!” Leifermann continues. “In the summer they are lighter in flavor, and as the cooler months come they have a richer flavor. The Carla – similar to our proprietary Florida winter varieties – is a delicious fruit that pleases even the most hardened hass-lovers.”
Brooks Tropicals will distribute Carla variety tropical avocado from January until the end of April.
