Until today, the Casa del Vino de El Sauzal hosts the 1st Canarian Avocado Fair, in which producers, technicians, experts and chefs highlight the values of the crop. These technical, training and gastronomic conferences respond to the relevance that this fruit reaches in the primary sector of the Island.
For fifteen years, the area cultivated with avocado increased at a rate of 30 hectares per year between 2006 and 2021, the year in which 790 hectares were registered in production. It is the crop with the highest growth on the Island, going from 1.7 million kilos harvested in 2012 to more than 4.29 million ten years later. Another relevant fact: it extends beyond the traditional areas, the valleys of Güímar and La Orotava. Figures that justify, in itself, the I Fair of the Avocado of Canary Islandsa professional and gastronomic conference that opens today from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at the Casa del Vino de El Sauzal.
Associations of avocado producers on the Island, organizations and public companies promote, exhibit and sell in the dozens of stalls set up and occupied by the ICIA, Savasa Agrícola, Agrorincón and Agrovivero El Rincón, Asguacan, SAT, Mercatenerife, Tenerife avocado, Mieles de Abona, Zumería Tamarindo and the Cabildo. At this free-entry fair, visitors taste and buy avocados, as well as honey, mojo sauces and derived juices.
The central courtyard of the Casa del Vino hosted the official inauguration and the nutritional, enhancement and gastronomic talks that complemented four culinary demonstrations, in charge of featured chefs like Diana Marcelino, Isidro Álvarez, Pedro Rodríguez Dios, Alfredo Marrero and Zebenzuí Acosta. All this, with the avocado as the protagonist and with live preparations that those present tasted: Avocado in tempura with sauce of roasted peppers and lime foam, Mojo de coriander and toasted avocado, Creamy avocado rice and grilled chicken, Trompe l’oeil avocado, Avocado with cocoa and olive oil and False avocado burrata, dried tomato sponge cake and chocolate vinaigrette.
The avocado is a fruit whose period of maximum production and best price covers from September to May. The sector considers the Hass as the best variety to plant and market, and the Reed (produced in summer) as the one with the best flavor.
The courtyard of the Honey Visitor Center Tenerife It was the stage where a group of minors developed the workshop given by Pablo Pastor, president of Acyre Canarias, focused on painting, with edible paint, 12 solidarity chocolate avocados. Although each author took his own, the objective was to auction them among the attendees to raise funds for the Association of Ukrainians in the Canary Islands. The starting price was 20 euros and 50 for the two larger ones. The authorities present bid, as did some officials.
The island councilor for Agriculture, Javier Parrilla, assured that the increase in cultivated area it was produced “ethically and responsibly” with the environment, since “it has mostly collected vacant and abandoned land, which contributes to the maintenance and improvement of our landscape and agricultural land”.
The Minister of the Presidency, Berta Pérez, defended that the avocado from Tenerife is “a national and European benchmark”, and highlighted the role of climate and volcanic soil in obtaining “a unique avocado, fattier, with aromas of almonds and walnuts and greater unctuousness and dry matter”.
The president of the Association of Canary Islands Avocado Producer Organizations (Asguacan), Wenceslao Martínez-Barona, valued the drive and support of the council and of Canary Islands Government. “The Islands produce the best avocado in Europe right now, hence the importance of improving and preparing ourselves for the goal of a good export,” he said. For the regional director general of Agriculture, Augusto Hernández, “we have before us a possible gastronomic treasure, a crop that has a lot of potential and very good yield.”
Pedro Acevedo, third generation of Savasa Agrícola, highlights “the great demand for a product that has been undervalued and whose qualities are now recognized.” Since yours is a company that diversifies production -also harvests tropical pineapple, mango and banana-, also bets on avocado as “a product with a large market niche”.
