USDA allows Hawaii to ship avocados to mainland

HONOLULU — Guacamole connoisseurs around the U.S. will soon have a new domestic avocado to try — not from California or Florida, but Hawaii.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is changing its rules for Hawaii growers to allow them to ship Sharwil avocados to 32 mainland U.S. states and the District of Columbia between November and March.

According to a USDA rule published in the Federal Register on Thursday, the shipments will help give shoppers an option to buy domestic avocados during winter months, when most grocery stores stock avocados from Mexico instead.

Growers mostly on the Big Island and Maui produce roughly 1 million pounds of the fruit each year, but until now they have only been able to sell within the state, said Tom Benton, president of the Hawaii Avocado Association.

Farmers sell 1 million pounds of avocados — about $700,000 worth — to stores and restaurants, said Benton, who runs a coffee and avocado farm on the Big Island that produces about 25,000 pounds of avocados per year.

“It has the potential of becoming a very strong part of Hawaii agriculture,” Benton said. “I feel we could easily be on par with coffee or macadamia nuts or any other section of Hawaii agriculture.”

Sharwil avocados are different from the Haas variety popular in many grocery stores. Sharwil avocados are larger, often rounder, and still hard to the touch when they’re ripe. But fans of the fruit in Hawaii tout them as superior to Haas in taste.

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