The U.S. paused avocado shipments from one of Mexico’s major producing regions on security worries, in an announcement just a day before the Super Bowl when guacamole consumption typically soars.
The Mexican agriculture ministry said the temporary suspension involves avocados from Michoacán—the world’s biggest producing region of the billion-dollar avocado trade. The U.S. had informed Mexico’s agriculture ministry of the decision after one of its officers, who was carrying out inspection work in the city of Uruapan, received a threatening call to his cell phone, according to the statement.
Michoacán, about a two-hour drive west of Mexico City, is rich in agriculture and exported more than 135,000 tons of avocados to the U.S. in the last six weeks alone. The U.S. is the world’s top importer of the fruit and prices tend to surge in the weeks before the Super Bowl—the biggest day for consumption in the U.S.