Two years of bad harvests and Millennials’ enduring love for avocado toast have sent the price of New Zealand avos up to an average of $5 – and “opportunistic” thieves are cashing in on the growing black (green?) market.
In one case, a pair of thieves were caught absconding from an orchard carrying doonas, each loaded with $4,300 worth of avocados. The men apparently struggled to explain to police what they were doing with so much fruit.
“It’s not like cannabis, where people can say it was for their own personal use,” Alasdair Macmillan, New Zealand’s coordinator of community policing, said. “You can only put so much avocado on your burger or in your sushi.”
Sadly, our Kiwi cousins can’t look to our giant avos for sustenance – because of its strict biosecurity laws, New Zealand doesn’t import the fruit.
Desperate times call for … gardening
Instead intrepid (and law-abiding) New Zealanders have turned to growing their own – resulting in long waiting lists for trees at nurseries.
Not that local gardens are immune from theft, with one Auckland resident telling the New York Times that he spent $500 on a security system for his prize tree after catching two thieves red-handed who then fled – one on a mobility scooter (for when you want a speedy getaway?)
Those looking to grow their own avocado toast supply will be waiting a while however – the trees take four to five years to start producing quality fruit.
As long as they don’t turn to growing weed in the meantime.
