Where Your Avocado Really Comes From — And Why Ours Is Different
On August 5, 2026, the U.S. government suspended all operations in Michoacán, Mexico — including the mandatory USDA inspections required before avocados can legally be exported to the United States. According to the Associated Press and Reuters, the U.S. cited a "threat to U.S. interests." Michoacán's governor, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, said the pause followed recent arrests connected to extortion investigations in the region, and hundreds of security personnel were deployed to the area.
It's not the first time. The U.S. paused inspections in this same region in 2024, after two USDA inspectors were assaulted and briefly detained.
What the U.S. Treasury Department has actually said
This isn't speculation on our part — it's the federal government's own documented position. The Treasury Department has said extortion of farmers, packers, and others involved in harvesting and exporting Michoacán's agricultural products, avocados included, is widespread, with cartel affiliates regularly demanding payment throughout the process. Treasury's language on what happens to those who don't pay is direct: growers face the "risk of significant violence to property or even loss of their lives." Treasury has also noted that some of these same groups have moved into seizing land and growing their own crops as an additional revenue stream.
We're not going to speculate beyond what's officially documented, and we're not naming any group by name — the point isn't to sensationalize it. The point is that this is the supply chain most of the country's avocados move through, according to the U.S. government's own findings, not ours.
Where most U.S. avocados actually come from
Mexico supplies 83% of every avocado imported into the U.S. — the vast majority grown in Michoacán. Most of what's left comes from Peru, with Colombia a fast-growing third. The Mexico-to-U.S. corridor runs almost entirely by refrigerated truck across border crossings — and to survive that transit and then sit on a store shelf, many exported avocados are treated with a wax coating to extend shelf life through the cold chain. It's a completely normal commercial practice. It's just not how we do it.
How we do it instead
Every avocado we sell comes from one place: our own Certified Organic ranch in Somis, California — a three-generation family operation. There's no importing, no border crossing, and no wax coating or Apeel treatment, because there's no long transit to protect against — our fruit is hand-picked, packed, and shipped directly from our own ranch, typically on the same day it is harvested from the tree.
We also farm the way we do because it's harder, and because it is right, not because it's easier. Soil moisture sensors and automated irrigation (controlled from a phone) mean our trees get exactly the water they need, no more. High-efficiency well pumps and a solar-powered packing warehouse and farm office cut our energy footprint. We build soil health with kelp extract and mycorrhizae instead of synthetic inputs, and we've kept trees alive through Santa Ana winds, hard frosts, and wildfires that regularly threaten Southern California groves — the ordinary, unglamorous work of keeping a family ranch alive for 40+ years.
The bottom line
You don't have to take a side in a geopolitical story to want to know where your food comes from — or how it got to you. If today's news made you pause next time you're in the produce aisle, that's a good instinct. We just happen to have an answer you can actually trace: our ranch, our trees, our family, start to finish.