Wild Strawberry Café, at Great Missenden's Peterley Mano Farm, bans avocados amid fears of Mexican drug cartels 'controlling lucrative exports'

Wild Strawberry Café, at Great Missenden-based Peterley Manor Farm, served up to a thousand avocados a week, according to national reports, but has now taken them off its menu citing “food miles”, “sustainability” and the need to use local produce in an Instagram post.

The café wrote: “Dear customers, we have some news for you…we will no longer be serving avocado in the yurt. This is not a joke.

“Controversial? Absolutely…We’re as acquainted as the next person with our weekly intake of smashed avocado toast, but this is something we have thought long and hard about.”

Giving reasons for the ban, it added: “Seasonality. Locally sourced ingredients have been woven into our identity from day one.

“There will always be exceptions, we do not claim to use a pinch of an Indian spice, a drizzle of olive oil or a crumble of Greek feta.

“However, the sheer quantity in which avos were being consumed was making us feel uneasy as they were so at odds with our local ethos.

“Food miles. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that food tastes better when it hasn’t been flown 5,000 miles.

“But more importantly, at a time when climate change concerns have never been more real, transporting ingredients in fuel-guzzling planes from Central and South America, Africa and beyond just to satisfy our whim for the latest food trend…is just plain wrong.

“Sustainability. The Western world’s obsession with avocado has been placing unprecedented demand on avocado farmers, pushing up prices to the point where there are even reports of Mexican drug cartels controlling lucrative exports.”

Café owner Katy Brill told The Mail on Sunday while it may have been “the worst business decision [she] has ever made”, customers of the café supported her decision.

It comes after a number of other cafés around the country also dropped the superfood from their menus for similar reasons.