Tell Trader Joe’s: Carry Monarch-Safe Avocados
The United States consumes 3 billion pounds of avocados every year, mostly from Mexico. To meet skyrocketing demand for this “green gold,” avocado plantations are gobbling up Mexican forests where imperiled monarch butterflies spend the winter.
U.S. grocery stores must adopt sustainable avocado-sourcing policies that prevent further deforestation and loss of monarch habitat in Mexico.
So far Sprouts has publicly committed to the innovative Pro-Forest Agriculture (PFA) certification program. Costco has also committed to reducing deforestation in its avocado supply chain and engaging its suppliers with the PFA program.
Trader Joe’s, however, has remained silent. So with your help, we’re calling on them to protect monarch butterflies, Mexican forests, and vulnerable nearby communities by adopting the PFA program.
Run by Mexican nonprofit Guardián Forestal — and backed by a coalition of environmental organizations, including the Center — this program aims to protect butterflies and forests by certifying packinghouses that source avocados only from orchards on land cleared before 2018. That prevents avocados grown on newly deforested sites from reaching U.S. markets.
More than 90% of Mexican avocado exports to the United States are now PFA certified. But until all avocado-importing packinghouses use the program, Mexico’s precious forests — and the animals and people who depend on them — remain in peril.
Take action
Thanks to Center for Biological Diversity supporters, more than 50,000 letters have been sent to top U.S. grocery stores urging them to source monarch-safe avocados in their supply chains. Now it’s Trader Joe’s turn to hear from you.
Help us urge Trader Joe’s to act — ideally on (or before) National Avocado Day on July 31, but actions after that will still make an impact.
You can participate in two ways:
In person
Download and print this postcard.
Bring it to a local Trader Joe’s store, give it to the manager, and ask them to pass it along to their corporate offices.
To make an especially strong statement, submit the card on July 31, National Avocado Day.
Online
Use this online comment form to leave feedback for Trader Joe’s. If you don’t live near a store, you can send your feedback to the location closest to the company’s headquarters by entering 91016 as the zip code and selecting “Monrovia (112).”
Here’s a sample letter you can paste in, but feel free to customize it:
The United States consumes 3 billion pounds of avocados a year, mostly from Mexico. To meet this demand, plantations are gobbling up forests where imperiled monarch butterflies overwinter.
Guardián Forestal's Pro-Forest Agriculture program helps prevent avocados grown on newly deforested land from reaching U.S. markets. It has blocked 2,900 orchards tied to deforestation from entering certified supply chains. But Mexico’s forests and butterflies still need help.
Sprouts is the latest grocery chain to publicly commit to the program. Trader Joe's should do the same. Please source avocados only from PFA-certified packinghouses.
