Avocados have been a culinary favorite in Mexico for thousands of years but have only become an American grocery power player during the past century. The history of the avocado’s rise to popularity in the states is one marked by tainted reputation, football marketing campaigns, and revolutionary trade agreements.

Let’s take a closer look at an avocado history detailing the avocado’s journey through time.

Foreign Flavors
In Mexico, the ancient Aztecs prized the pear-shaped berry as a dietary essential and aphrodisiac. When the Spanish conquistadores colonized Central and South America, they began to incorporate avocados — then known by their Spanish name, aguacate — into their dishes, and the versatile fruit spread across the continent.

Avocados did not make their way north of the border until 1833, when horticulturist Henry Perrine brought them from Mexico and planted them in Florida. Other farmers began growing avocados in states with temperate climates, such as California, Hawaii and Florida, simply because they found the fruit interesting.

Throughout the early 20th century, American growers began to explore the possibility of growing and selling avocados commercially. Initial efforts proved difficult, but a name change helped to make them fruitful.

Commercial Coming Out
When “alligator pears” — as avocados were originally called in America for their bumpy texture and oval shape — first hit the American marketplace, consumers didn’t see the appeal. The avocado still suffered criticism from conservatives for its reputation as an aphrodisiac, and its unappetizing American name also contributed to low consumer demand.

More traditional name options, like aguacate, ahuacate or ahuacatl, proved to be too difficult for Americans to pronounce. This lead a group of Californian avocado farmers to rebrand the fruit as the avocado in 1915 in the hopes of increasing sales.

Marketing Moves
With an easier name to pronounce, more Americans began purchasing avocados. The Californian farmers then reconvened and set a new goal: make avocados a part of the everyday diet.

The group purchased advertisements in magazines like Vogue and The New Yorker, hoping to encourage Americans to eat more avocados. Many of these print ads featured healthy options, like salads, aimed at shifting consumer impressions of avocados from questionable to healthy.

They didn’t stop there. In the early 1990s, the California Avocado Commission marketed guacamole as the perfect snack for the Super Bowl with a campaign that shared recipes and allowed consumers to taste them. The avocado dip started an American game-day tradition, and further marketing campaigns extended its reach into Cinco de Mayo celebrations as well. Today, the Super Bowl and Cinco de Mayo are the two days during the year with the highest number of avocado purchases nationwide.

These marketing campaigns helped re-root the avocado in its Mexican origin, but none of the avocados that Americans consumed in the early 90s were truly from Mexico.

Trade Transitions
Before 1994, the U.S. banned Mexican avocado imports due to fears of insect infestation and competition. 1994’s North American Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States eliminated several barriers to trade, impacting nearly every industry, including avocados. When the ban was lifted in 1997, Mexico’s avocado industry started to boom — and so did American consumption.

Because Mexico’s climate is conducive to growing avocados year-round, it was able to meet the increasing American demand in a way that Californian growers could not.

At the start of the millennium, 20 percent of all avocados consumed in the U.S. were imported from Mexico.

Media Madness
Nearly 20 years later, avocados have stormed Instagram feeds with photos of colorful avocado toasts and smoothies and have quickly become a clean-eating trend. The fruit’s oils are even used for face masks, moisturizing lotions and earthy-smelling hair products.

Thanks to a growing Latino population in the states and trending Mexican recipes, avocados are more popular than ever: On average, Americans eat about seven pounds of avocado per person annually, with most avocados coming from Mexico.