The Hass Avocado Board (HAB) has announced provided U.S. retail sales numbers from earlier this year that indicate promising growth.

It claims that Hass avocados have "shattered" second quarter holiday sales trends. All three holidays during this quarter (Easter, Cinco de Mayo and Memorial Day) saw four-year sales highs.

Specifically, Easter sales reached US$54m, Cinco de Mayo saw US$64m and Memorial Day achieved US$57m.

Overall, reports HAB, the category is going strong.

The avocado category is growing strongly in sales. Compared to last year, HAB noted an 11% increase in dollar sales of Hass avocados versus a 2.1% rise in total produce sales.

Breaking down the numbers a bit, over a four week period ending in August, bagged avocados were the PLU group with the highest sales, earning US$90.6m.

Despite large Hass avocados falling in sales by 3.9% from last year, they still made up 30.7% of total sales. Following bagged and large avocados were small/medium and extra-large Hass avocados.  

Also worth noting is the 36.2% sales growth rate for "all other" PLU types within the category.