Please find brief market updates for Almonds, Hazelnuts, Cashews, Brazil Nuts, Macadamia, Dried Apricots and Chia Seeds below. BATA FOOD will continue to publish latest dried fruits and nuts industry news and our comments at our blog.
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Almonds
We can definitely say that Almonds are currently the most popular nut in the world. On the price side, almond market is actually stable compared to Cashews and Pecans as the supply side is good and buying interest is a little low because many of the buyers are covered their needs.
There’s been a lot of rain in California so for the next crop it seem like there’s going to be a more water with a larger crop size and also a large demand too.
Hazelnuts
Efforts of hazelnut farmers to increase hazelnut prices by keeping their stocks on hand and pressuring government to regulate the market seem like not working. Markets remain low, in shell hazelnuts are being traded at 10.50 TL / kg which is much lower than growers expectations. Growers are definitely not satisfied with the market prices but at the same time they do not want to keep stocks any longer as some of them even have stocks from the 2015 crop.
Cashews
Cashew prices remain high, we expect prices to stay like this probably until late March 2017 as the Vietnamese new crop won’t be coming until that time. Right now processors in Vietnam mostly working with Tanzanian material as there was a lack of availability. Europe stocks are running very low as well and many of the stocks left in EU are not so good in quality. So demand will be there and it will prevent prices to go down.
It will be smart to cover needs for February, March, April because we may see delays on shipments like we had it last year.
Brazil Nuts
Brazil Nuts prices are going up in the market as the new crop at South America expected to be 30% smaller comparing to previous crop and there are no offers in origin at the moment. Demand is very strong at the moment, buyers are trying to cover their mid-term needs.
Macadamia
For Macadamia we expect seeing more availability this year at South Africa and Malawi compared to last year. There’s been a lot of planting since few years which increase crop size, though we haven’t seen any reduction on prices which would allow growing sales. There is a big demand for inshell Macadamia nuts coming from China and also from Japan and some other Asian countries. Anyway, we hope seeing better crop this year with better offers in origin.
Dried Apricots
Dried Apricot market remains stable in Lira, but foreign currency (USD and EUR) prices fallen over the past months as the Lira has weakened significantly against foreign currencies.
Prices are cheap at the moment for dried apricots, buyers had covered half of their requirements at harvest time and now many of them looking to cover the rest of the year. There is a significant frost risk at Malatya until late March, so market conditions may change quickly in the event of a frost as we have experienced in the past.
We strongly suggest buyers to take advantage of low market prices and cover before the frost risk period.
Chia Seeds
It is now very clear that we will have a bad crop at Chia growing regions in South America (such as Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina). Prices are increasing at origin countries and it started to affect Europe market as well because stocks are getting lower. We also see some quality problems such as high pesticides so buyers should be careful especially with the cheap offers.
Good quality chia stocks in Europe market moving very fast as players in the market trying to secure their needs by contracting their mid-term needs.