It’s the most controversial fruit on the planet, a victim of its own success. In Australia, where it first rose to fame ‘smashed’ on toast and then whipped into vegan choc mousse, green goddess dressing and goodness bowls, it has been blamed for Gen Y’s dwindling home-ownership rates, with critics blaming extravagantly priced, green-hued brunches for a lack of savings. In Mexico, the world’s biggest avocado producer, there’s an avocado militia tasked with protecting the country’s precious plantations from drug cartels. While the environmental footprint of Mother Nature’s popular green butter ranges from deforestation in Mexico to drought in California.

With this in mind from the midst of the ‘avolatte’ and green-smoothie epoch, you would think we would have had more than our fix, but farmers in Spain have just produced a new variety that will no doubt ensure avo’s onward march. Dubbed the ‘cocktail avocado’, the miniature fruit is 5-8cm long with the same mottled dark skin and rich creamy flesh of the original, minus the troublesome seed.

The seedless cocktail avos – the result of an unpollinated avocado blossom, which prevents a seed forming and stunts the fruit’s growth – are the perfect single serve, don’t need to be peeled, and pose no threat to your digits, which is a serious side-effect of this superstar superfood according to leading British plastic surgeon Simon Eccles, who says he treats about four patients a week at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London for knife wounds caused by cutting into the fruit.

British retailer Marks and Spencer is the first supermarket to sell the seedless avocado: “This amazing fruit has been on our radar for a couple of years and we’re very excited to have finally been able to get hold of some for our customers to try,” says Charlotte Curtis, M&S agronomist. “We’ve had the mini, the giant, ready-sliced and we’re now launching the holy grail of avocados – stoneless.”

The next-gen avo is not yet available in Australia, but, given our insatiable appetite for the fruit – The Avocado Australia Association reports we have doubled our consumption since 2007, to an average of four kilograms per person, per year – we anticipate it won’t be long before our national dish is the ‘new Aussie breakfast’ of seedless avo on toast.