CatZinfo – Dried Fruits

Last year showed (again) our trade remains rather unpredictable as far as pricing and availability of products are concerned.
Important parameters such as weather and currencies simply cannot be influenced and act sometimes unexpected. Of course the “El Nino” phenomena was expected, but that it would cause record low crops of for example Chilean walnuts and Philippine bananachips was not foreseen.
On the other hand the currency is playing a major role in today’s import of agricultural products. The strong dollar is spoiling attractive pricing in euro for quite some products. Californian walnuts costing in dollars around 30% less than in recent years, but with the current euro/dollar rate part of this advantage is taken away for the European buyers. Who would have predicted the Turkish Lira would be 20% less than one year ago? In combination with good crops of apricots and sultanas, we would have seen ‘old’ prices again, if not the weak euro against the stronger dollar is also here ‘spoiling the fun’.

 

Also political issues are hard to foresee. The Russian ban on Turkish product has not only caused problems for the Turkish exporters, but on the other hand was a present for the Iranian exporters who were able to fill up the gap gratefully.

 

Another trend we see at the moment is the heavy demand for spot material. Due to the high prices of last season, combined with lower prices for ‘new’ crop, most buyers have been carefully buying waiting for a further decline, but losing the momentum to cover in time, in order to have product in their warehouse before the seasonal period.

 

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For the coming year we will have similar challenges, but it is hard to assess which products and till what extend these will be subject to changes.
About a few elements we can be pretty sure:

 

  • The increasing focus on health and quality issues. If not required by buyers in the form of all kind of certifications like IFS and BRC, it will be the European Union lowering all kind of thresholds for pesticides and issues like MOSH/MOAH.
  • Political tensions between various countries and organisations will increase. We may think of the plans of the new president – elect in the USA, who has announced to withdraw or at least to be critical about free trade agreements. Also the tensions between EU and Turkey, especially Mr. Erdogan, may result one or the other day in some limitations of the free trade as we know today between both regions.
  • The currencies will become more volatile as the interest rates will be used as an economic stimulator and hence applicable for more changes (upwards).
  • All together we will see more and more unexpected movements in the markets.

 

Our dedicated and enthusiastic team is eager to serve you also in 2017 and assist you with the many upcoming challenges.

One of the things is to continue with our bi-weekly CatZinfo, as we do meanwhile for over 20 years. Also we will continue to be your reliable partner in these volatile markets.

 

May we finish to wish all of you Happy Holidays and a healthy and prosperous 2017!