January Export Quality

Quality of exported Australian Hass remains high

Retail quality monitoring in Hong Kong continued in January 2026 under the Avocado International Retail Quality Benchmarking project (AV24015). Funded through the Hort Innovation avocado R&D levy, the project will benchmark Australian avocado quality against competitor countries in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. In Hong Kong, four samples are collected weekly from major retailers including Wellcome, Market Place and PARKnSHOP. Monitoring will expand to Kuala Lumpur soon and continue weekly in both cities for two years as part of this comprehensive benchmarking program.

In January, 90% of monitored Australian Hass was rated acceptable, compared with 77% for competitor Hass. The key issue for Australian fruit was vascular browning: 5% of fruit had more than 10% of flesh affected. In competitor fruit, rots were the dominant defect, with over 21% having unacceptable rot levels (figure 1). These differences in rot levels occurred even though average fruit age was similar for both Australian (32 days) and competitor (35 days) samples.

Figure 1: Internal defects of Hass sampled in Hong Kong (January 2026)

A further difference was ripeness at purchase. Australian fruit was consistently firmer, with the majority purchased at stage 2, whereas competitor fruit was most commonly at stage 3. This variation did not appear to impact bruising levels, as no unacceptably bruised Hass were observed in Hong Kong in January 2026. Project progress will continue to be shared via monthly Guacamole summaries and Talking Avocados articles, and presented at regional forums and webinars.

Figure 2: Average ripeness at purchase of Hass sampled in Hong Kong (January 2026)

More information

For further details please contact Henry Hyde henry.hyde@ahr.com.au or Adam Goldwater adam.goldwater@ahr.com.au at AHR.

Acknowledgements

The Avocado International Retail Quality Benchmarking project (AV24015) has been funded by Hort Innovation, using the avocado research and development levy and contributions from the Australian Government. Hort Innovation is the grower-owned, not-for-profit research and development corporation for Australian horticulture.

This article appears as part of the 27 February 2026 issue of Guacamole, our e-Newsletter.

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