Grower Newsletter for Harris Woolf Almonds
July 2011
Harris Woolf California Almonds
Gold Hills Nut Company
Market Update
Publish Date: August 11, 2011
The final Position Report of the 2010-2011 Almond Crop Year was released this morning with overall good news. As an industry we shipped 13.3% more than last year with both the domestic and export markets showing significant growth. For the crop year we moved an astonishing 1.667 billion pounds of almonds around the world which not only exhausted all of the 1.628 billion pounds of almonds produced from this crop but also took a chunk out of the carry-in from the previous crop year. We unfortunately did not set a record or even surpass last year’s shipping number for the month of July. The 110 million pounds we shipped was down 2% from last year and 9% from the record of two years ago. This is going to be a great point of contention over the upcoming week as everyone tries to figure out why July fell short. We are in the camp that believes that there was simply not enough product left to ship to hit another record in the industry. On the other side of the equation they would say that this is a sign of weakness in the market and that this is the beginning of a trend. The truth is, no one can be certain why last last month was slow, but that can’t stop us from arguing about it.
Prices had recovered nicely from their post-estimate levels with help from the June Position Report. Everyone knows though, we live in a “what have you done for me lately” world and you are only as good as your last shipping number. This mixed bag will be sorted out over the next few days as everyone anxiously awaits the first receipts of the new Crop Year. The first results will be repeated far and wide like a bad joke on the internet as everyone tries to project the whole crop from the first 40 acres of 25 year old Nonpareils to get hulled and shelled.
We would still argue that a 1.95 billion pound crop is manageable. If you project our 5 year average growth for the industry of 13% onto our just finalized 1.667 billion pound shipping number from last year we would ship 1.88 billion pounds over the next 12 months. This lines up almost exactly with the estimate minus the 3% for loss and exempt. If this scenario plays out, we had better hope and pray that we average the same 2,600 pounds per acre across the state in 2012 or risk the supply chain drying up.
As always we are here for your thoughts, questions, and comments. Feel free to contact us.
http://www.almondboard.com/positionreports/2011.07iphonePR.pdf