The June 2020 California Almond Industry Position Report was published this morning. Here are some key points from the report:
2019 Crop Receipts to Date: 2547 Million LBS
2019 Total Shipments to Date: 2192 Million LBS (+3.91%)
June Total Shipments: 175 Million LBS (+6.2 %)
• Domestic Shipments: 58.5 Million LBS (+2.4%)
• Export Shipments: 116.8 Million LBS (+8.2%)
Total Commitments: 370 Million LBS (+30.7%)
Net New Sales: 90 Million LBS
2019 Crop Percentage Sold 100%**
2020 Crop Percentage Sold 15.2%**
Various Countries/Regions Month to Month Shipment Change
India (+53%)
China/HK (-56%)
South Korea (+60%)
Japan (-28%)
Western Europe (-1%)
Central & Eastern Europe (+2%)
Middle East (+70%)
**Total commitments are 370M LBS. We do not foresee more than 170M+/- LBS being shipped in July. This would leave 200 M+/- LBS rolling into new crop sales. This number coupled with the current 458M LBS of new crop sales, would bring the new crop sold position to 22%. In order to contrast this at the same time last year New crop Sales not including excess commitments from previous crop was at 9%, so we can all see that lower prices in Almonds is driving the demand.
We know that COVID is a concern right now and it is taking much of top of mind awareness ( TOMA) but the silent majority is buying these incredibly low prices as it is foregone conclusion that when the almond prices drop to 10 years Lows, the prices will eventually rise because of demand increasing to balance the supply. Additional factor impacting prices would be the packing capacity in peak demand i.e. Sept to Nov, which will see growers selling less product as we won’t be able to ship the amount of product which is needed at the current price levels.
Our opinion is that this is a buying opportunity for most customers who want to take advantage of lower cost of goods.
Further the crop is progressing well and we think that the harvest will be a week or two earlier this year.
Please let us know if you have any further questions.
Kind Regards,
The Valley Pride Ag Co Team