TikTok & Instagram reshape New Zealand avocado habits

New research from NZ Avocado shows TikTok and Instagram are changing how younger New Zealanders use avocados, with social media emerging as a growing source of recipe inspiration.

A survey of 1,003 New Zealand adults found online food trends and the country's cultural diversity are expanding avocado use beyond breakfast and brunch into a wider range of meals. Lunch was the most common occasion across all respondents at 23%, ahead of breakfast at 18%, while 24% said they ate avocado across several meals or occasions.

The research suggests younger consumers are turning to short-form video and image-based platforms for ideas rather than cookbooks or family recipes. New Zealanders were incorporating Indian, Middle Eastern and Pacific flavours into avocado dishes, along with Asian-style condiments, pickled vegetables and ingredients not usually associated with guacamole.

Toast remained the most common avocado pairing, cited by 68% of avocado consumers. Salad followed at 48%, with eggs at 42%, Mexican food at 31% and sushi at 25%.

Recipe habits also showed a willingness to improvise. Among those preparing guacamole, 45% said they had their own recipe they used regularly, 37% said they adapted recipes based on ingredients already at home, and 32% said they added chilli or other spicy ingredients.

The most commonly used guacamole ingredients remained lime or lemon, salt and pepper, tomato, garlic, onion, chilli and coriander. This suggests a mix of familiar staples and personalised variations as consumers adjust dishes to taste and trend.

Brad Siebert, Chief Executive Officer, NZ Avocado, said social platforms had become central to how younger people discover food ideas. “TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms have effectively become enormous recipe discovery engines, particularly for younger consumers.

“People are being exposed to flavours and combinations they might never have encountered through traditional cookbooks or recipes passed down through families, and that is influencing how foods such as avocado are being used,” Siebert said.

Home preparation

The study also found signs that the long-standing link between millennials and café avocado toast is weakening. Millennials were still the age group most likely to buy avocado toast from cafés, but 35% said they were doing so less often than a year earlier.

Across the wider population, 61% of avocado toast consumers said they mostly prepared it at home, while only 5% said they mostly bought it from cafés. Another 27% said they were buying it from cafés less often.

The shift towards preparing avocado dishes at home may reflect both cost pressures and the ease of recreating dishes seen online. Short videos and social posts have lowered the barrier to trying unfamiliar combinations, particularly with ingredients such as avocado that can be added to many meals with little preparation.

Siebert said global food trends now moved quickly into New Zealand kitchens. “A recipe or food trend that starts on the other side of the world can now be in somebody's kitchen in New Zealand within days.

“That creates an interesting dynamic for food producers because consumers are no longer relying solely on traditional recipes or local food culture for inspiration. Their influences are increasingly global and digitally driven,” Siebert said.

Consumption gap

The findings come as the avocado sector looks to lift domestic consumption. New Zealanders consume about 3.3kg of avocado per person each year, compared with 4.74kg in Australia and about 12kg per person in Mexico.

At the same time, the volume of avocados sold in New Zealand has grown strongly in recent years. Sales rose from about 2.5 million 5.5kg tray equivalents in 2020 to about 3.8 million in the 2024-25 season, an increase of more than half.

New Zealand is self-sufficient in fresh avocados and does not import them, so fruit sold on the domestic market is locally grown. That gives the industry a clear incentive to find new occasions for consumers to use avocado, particularly beyond the traditional breakfast setting.

Siebert said the combination of online inspiration and home cooking could help broaden avocado use. “Consumers can see something online and reproduce it themselves almost immediately. Avocado is particularly well suited to that because it can be used across a large number of cuisines and requires very little preparation.

“The opportunity for the industry is to encourage people to think beyond avocado toast and see avocado as an ingredient they can use throughout the day and across many different types of food,” Siebert said.

He said there was still room for further growth in the domestic market. “If New Zealanders consumed avocados at anywhere near Mexico's level of around 12kg per person, the domestic market could potentially triple in value, from around $60 million to almost $200 million a year at current values.

“Social media gives the industry another way of exposing consumers to uses for avocado they may not previously have considered.

“The more occasions we can create for people to eat avocado, whether that is breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks or dishes influenced by different cuisines, the greater the potential growth in domestic consumption,” Siebert said.