Why this company
Mission Produce publishes two numbers most companies keep to themselves: how many pounds of avocados it sold and the average price per pound. That makes it possible to separate price from volume with public data, which is the first thing we do with a client’s sales.
It is far larger than the businesses we serve, with $1,391M of sales in fiscal 2025 (its fiscal year ends on October 31). The lesson does not depend on size. Any business whose selling price follows a market it does not control has the same problem: distributors, food producers, anything tied to a commodity.
Three years of the same business
In fiscal 2023 the company sold 12% more pounds than the year before and revenue fell, because the average price dropped from $1.71 to $1.30 a pound. In fiscal 2024 it sold 1% fewer pounds and revenue rose 29%, because the price went back up to $1.69.
Read by revenue alone, the business shrank in 2023 and boomed in 2024. Read by pounds, it grew in 2023 and stood still in 2024.
| Fiscal year | Pounds sold (millions) | Average price per pound | Net sales | Gross profit | Gross margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 654.4 | $1.30 | $954M | $83.3M | 8.7% |
| 2024 | 647.3 | $1.69 | $1,235M | $152.5M | 12.4% |
| 2025 | 691.3 | $1.71 | $1,391M | $160.7M | 11.6% |
Net sales include other fruit. Pounds and prices are for avocados only.
How much was price, how much was volume
Pounds multiplied by price reproduces avocado sales closely, so each year’s change can be split in two. From fiscal 2023 to 2024, avocado sales rose about $243M: volume took away $9M and price added $252M. From 2024 to 2025 they rose about $88M: volume added $74M and price $14M.
The year with the bigger sales increase was the year the company sold less. The year it moved more product looks, on the revenue line, like the weaker of the two.
Avocado sales, fiscal 2023 to 2025: volume and price
US$ millions · pounds sold × average price
Why margin percentage does not help either
Gross margin was 8.7% in 2023, 12.4% in 2024 and 11.6% in 2025. On that measure 2025 was a step back. Gross profit in dollars went up, from $152.5M to $160.7M.
The company describes the trap itself. In the last quarter of fiscal 2025 revenue fell 10%, gross profit was unchanged and gross margin rose 1.8 points. In its words, “the margin increase was driven by lower revenues compared to last year, resulting from lower per-unit pricing.” When the price falls and the profit per pound holds, the percentage improves without the business earning one dollar more.
What the company watches instead
Mission Produce says it “manages the business primarily to volume and per-unit margins.” A rough version can be built from public figures: the adjusted EBITDA of its marketing and distribution segment divided by avocado pounds sold was about 6.1 cents in 2023, 13.1 in 2024 and 10.8 in 2025. The segment also sells other fruit, so this is an approximation.
That series tells a different story from revenue. Fiscal 2024 was the strong year because each pound earned about twice as much, not because sales grew. In 2025 the company sold 7% more pounds and earned somewhat less on each. Cash followed profit per pound: cash from operations went from $29M in 2023 to $93M and $89M, and borrowings came down from about $155M to about $100M.
| Fiscal year | Segment adjusted EBITDA | Pounds sold (millions) | Cents per pound |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $40M | 654.4 | 6.1 |
| 2024 | $85M | 647.3 | 13.1 |
| 2025 | $75M | 691.3 | 10.8 |
What a private business can take from it
- Report units next to revenue every month. If units are hard to count, use the closest measure: cases, tons, hours, jobs.
- Split every change in sales into price and volume before explaining it.
- Track gross profit per unit alongside the margin percentage, and trust the per-unit figure when prices are moving.
- Budget in units and in margin per unit. In a business like this, a revenue budget is mostly a guess about a price you do not set.
Sources and limits
Pounds sold and average prices come from the company’s year-end press releases, including the release for fiscal 2025. The other figures come from its annual reports on Form 10-K; the 10-K for fiscal 2025 was filed on December 18, 2025.
The price and volume effects, the percentages and the cents per pound are our calculations. Pounds times average price differs from reported avocado sales by about 1% in fiscal 2025. We have no access to internal information.
The management questionHow much of our sales growth is price, how much is volume, and what does each unit earn?