LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Avocado growers were facing a crime wave in New Zealand this week, as surging local demand coupled with a poor season last year have created a black market for the fatty green berry.
Since January, almost 40 large-scale thefts have been reported at avocado orchards on the country's temperate Te Ika-A-Maui (North Island).

The fruit has been selling for around NZD 5.00 apiece (£2.50) in supermarkets, with some consumers in more remote parts of the country reporting prices of up to NZD 10.00 in recent months.

Research by industry lobby group Avocado New Zealand has suggested that 96,000 domestic households began purchasing avocados avocados in 2015.

The country's growers, which have traditionally focused on the lucrative market for export fruit, have been unable to keep up with the surging demand.

Sergeant Aaron Fisher - a police officer in the northern mining town of Waihi, which is surrounded by orchards - said he has seen spates of thefts during his career, but nothing like the current run of thefts.

He told the Guardian that the stolen avocados carry risks, saying: "they are unripe, some have been sprayed recently and they may still carry toxins on the skin.

"But with the prices so high at the moment, the potential for profit is a strong inducement for certain individuals."

It's understood the thefts have taken place in the cover of darkness, with the hauls driven away to pop-up roadside stalls - ubiquitous in the surrounding Bay of Plenty region - or driven to independent grocery stores, sushi, fruit and sandwich shops in the larger cities of Auckland and Hamilton.

Surging global avocado prices have been noted globally in recent weeks, with AIM-traded grower Camellia indicating earlier this month that avocado prices, along with the macadamia and pistachio markets, were helping to offset a recent collapse in tea prices.

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