CATZINFO – DRIED FRUITS AND WALNUTS

With stocks coming to the lower levels, demand is picking up resulting in more active markets, especially for spot material.
After a period of slower consumption in the recent period for especially the more expensive products, we see demand slowly picking up.
We also notice for most items firmer prices: first of all as a logic consequence of higher demand; secondly because some crops from the Southern Hemisphere are not as good expected and the bloom in some areas on the northern part of the world has been affected by adverse weather conditions.
The dollar is somewhat weakening against the euro, which softens the increasing dollar products when converted to euro.
The Turkish Lira, though at a very slow pace, is still losing ground and is heading towards the threshold of 20 Liras for a US-dollar.
A gamechanger might be the election in May in Turkey. So far the policy of Mr. Erdogan to lower interest rates has not helped to lower inflation.
As usual the present government lead by Mr. Erdogan is supporting the farmers, being
a large potential for votes, by promising higher minimum price and other revenues for the agricultural sector.

Dried Fruits

Apples

The supply of Chinese apples becomes a problem. The Chinese exporters are almost completely withdrawn and a rare offer for a small quantity is offered at rather high prices. Problem is the low availability as demand from the fresh market is good and paying high prices. As supply must come from the more expensive cold stores for making dried apples, exporters are afraid of producing at a high cost price. As a result there is hardly anybody offering.
With new crop not available till the end of the year, this may become a tough year if still in need to cover till that time. In this situation first shipments of the new crop in October also will do a premium in an empty market, so we see no relief till beginning 2024.

Apricots
The situation in Malatya is a disaster. First of all from a human perspective. Imagine a city of 1 million people now only living 100.000 people as most fled to family in other parts of Türkiye. Houses are destroyed and we know nobody not having lost relatives or friends.
Though export of apricots is regaining volume now the infrastructure is partially restored to the bare minimum, practical problems like lack of protective sprays is increasing all kind of diseases in the orchards. On top the bloom has been hit by 3 nights of frost and continuous rains in March has limited the pollination.
In this situation the expectations for the new crop are pessimistic and resulting in even further increases of the prices.
In view of the export figures there will not be a huge carry out and with another year of a small crop ahead, we do not expect lower price for another year.
South Africa is having the smallest crop since many years and already completely sold.

Banana chips
Prices for Philippine banana chips continue to firm. The supply of green bananas remains slow, whereas demand from especially the Asian market is heavy.
New orders can only be shipped with at least one or two months waiting time; sometimes further delayed by the still irregular sailings from the ships.
Broken banana chips are really problematic with some shippers withdrawn and others not shipping until July.

Pears/Peaches
The South-African crop is in, but problem is the high humidity, expanding the drying period.
Peaches having a normal crop and looking okay, though production and shipment will be delayed due to the mentioned drying conditions.
The availability of the pears will be limited and late as well.

Pineapple/Papaya
For pineapple a somewhat smaller crop is expected and now demand is picking up, we see somewhat firmer prices. The next (main) crop will be in October, so for the coming months we will see some higher prices.
For papaya we shall have to struggle as the season is over and with no additional volume coming in till next crop in October the scarce quantities will change hands at high prices.
For melon price remain firm as well. Though the first crop will last till next months, quantities are limited, this leading to firm prices.
Mango, ginger and coconut prices are stable and well available.
Another issue in general is the high price for sugar, which increases the cost prices for all items with added sugar.

Prunes
The Chilean crop is in full swing and looking okay. The quantity available for dried prunes will be more or less same as last year (>60K ton).
What keeps prices up is the lack of competition. Argentina having a small crop again; France having one of the smallest crops in history and California having a limited crop as well is quoting way higher than Chile and certainly within Europe cannot compete taking in consideration the additional import duties of 9,6%.
The fruits are somewhat bigger this season, so small sizes will not be heavily discounted.

Raisins
The South-African crop is in, but unfortunately rather disappointing in view of the numbers. It looks like the crop will end at around 55K tons, whereas last year the total crop was said to be 78K.
The good news is the quality: perfectly matured with a correct sugar content, the vast majority of the fruits will be grade as ‘choice’. Therefore there will be hardly any ‘standard’ available, usually the somewhat cheaper alternative used in all kind of mixes.
Also jumbo sized fruit will be very scarce and will only be offered – if at all – when all fruits have been dried and sorted as shippers do not take any risk to sell goods which may not be available.
Though the share of goldens increased, due to the smaller crop the net result will only be slightly more goldens.
However with last year’s very limited production of goldens, the market was completely empty and first shipments were taken.
rapidly. Thompsons are well available even with a larger carry-out of the previous crop so prices remain stable for these.
Chile is reporting as well a normal crop, but also with somewhat less jumbos available. Jumbo goldens will be limited again, so in combination with the scarcity in SA, we foresee hardly any offer of jumbo goldens from either origin.
Turkey is still struggling to move their big crop. With TMO having sold the 2021 crop finally, there still is a good quantity of the current crop available and prices remain attractive and stable.
End of March there was some night frost, which may have damaged a 10 to 15% of the crop and used as an argument to increase prices.
However with still over 1/3 of the crop for sale and next crop available in about 4 months’ time, this has lead only to a small and temporarily hick up of the market prices.

Nuts

Walnuts
California is anxiously looking to move volumes of the record crop of 2022.
The March shipment figures only showed an increase. The problem is the huge quantity of ‘combo’ or ‘domestic’ material, being somewhat darker.
This in contrary to the higher end halves and genuine light material. This is becoming more difficult to find and some shippers already out of the market for Chandler 80% LHP. It will not be a surprise the prices for this material are increasing.
The Chilean harvest of walnuts has been started. It is expected the volume will increase again to a new record of 190K tons (inshell base).
Nevertheless prices remain high compared to other origin, but there is a solid buying group for high quality and light colored walnuts.
A tendency we see is the fact the hand cracked material is offered by less and less shippers, as the cost of labour are increasing in Chile quite rapidly and premium compared to machine cracked is rather big. However for some buyers hand cracked is a ‘must’.