The United States had a total supply of 105.51 billion pounds of fresh produce in 2022. Fruit availability in the United States totaled 42.26 billion pounds in 2022, or 40.1 percent of fresh produce. The total supply of fresh fruit can be split into U.S. production and imports which are, respectively, 19.11 and 23.15 billion pounds. Fresh vegetables are also broken into production and imports, some products also include beginning stocks which contributed an additional 1.30 billion pounds in 2022. Vegetable production totaled 42.92 billion pounds with imports at 20.32 billion.
The main fruits produced domestically were apples, oranges, strawberries, grapes, and lemons while the main fruits imported were bananas, avocados, pineapples, grapes, and limes. The main vegetables produced domestically were potatoes, onions, leaf and romaine, head lettuce and sweet potatoes, while the main imported vegetables were tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, potatoes, and onions. While production values are still unavailable for 2023, information on trade indicates that U.S. imports for fresh fruits increased by 2.13 percent from 2022. Fresh vegetables decreased by a third of a percent from one year to the next.
Moreover, during 2023, Mexico was the largest exporter of fresh produce to the United States totaling an estimated 25.1 billion pounds, worth an estimated $17.96 billion. Of that 10.25 billion pounds, or 40.9 percent, was fresh fruit and the other 14.84 billion pounds were fresh vegetables. Mexico is the largest source of U.S. imports for a large variety of products. Mexican exports are dominated by tomatoes with 4.29 billion pounds of exports followed by avocados (2.48 billion pounds) and peppers (1.85 billion pounds). U.S. import volume for each of these three products from Mexico is larger than the total volume of fresh produce imported from any market outside of the top five.
Guatemala and Costa Rica followed Mexico as the two next largest exporters of fresh produce to the United States. Guatemala was the source of 6.17 billion pounds of fresh produce with 4.44 billion pounds from Costa Rica. Over 90 percent of the total fresh produce exported to the United States for both countries was fresh fruit with the volume heavily concentrated to a few products. Of the 6.17 billion pounds of produce exported from Guatemala 4.38 billion pounds were bananas. Similarly, Costa Rica leads exports of pineapples to the United States with 2.46 billion pounds of the 4.44 billion.
