The new crop of Pine nuts looks smaller than announced at the INC webinar in June this year (see below table).
Especially the Russian crop, which now appears to be only half of what was estimated. Underlining again how hard it is to make a good crop prediction on Pine nuts – because this is a not cultivated crop.
So when the Covid-19 crisis started and rumors came into the market of a big crop, we saw the prices of Pine nuts collapse. However the strange thing is that, although prices came down because of expected lower demand and a big crop, the demand for Pine nuts never slowed down. In fact, we have the feeling that the demand is stronger than last year.
This unexpected strong demand saw spot prices of Pine nuts increase rapidly again and right now there is not enough stock in Europe to fulfill demand. Because of this strong demand, we also saw the forward prices increase again in origin and exporters are fully booked for shipments until the end of this year.
Looking forward, we do not expect Pine nut prices to decrease any further. In fact, we think that prices will increase again in the first half of 2021. The main reason is the fact that the crop 2021 will be a small one and speculators will start buying and storing in shells again in expectation of higher prices.
We have the feeling that the prices today are also (looking back historically), at the low end of the market and it is worth looking at covering your needs for 2021.
Also keeping in the back of your mind that availability is still an issue. Right now we can only book contracts for deliveries January 2021 onwards. So it is also a matter of securing supply not only booking at the lowest price possible.
Furthermore, it is still very difficult to offer Organic Pine nuts because Organic certifiers were not able to travel to origin plants because of Covid-19. We expect to be able to make offers again in November but we only expect actual supply in Europe to be possible earliest in February/March 2021. So also here our advice is to cover the moment the offers come out.
| INC Webinar June 2020 | ||
| ESTIMATED WORLD PINE NUT PRODUCTION | ||
| In-shell Basis · Metric Tons | ||
| 2019/2020 | 2020/2021 | |||||||
| COUNTRY | BEG. STOCK | CROP | TOTAL SUPPLY | ENDING STOCK | BEG. STOCK | CROP | TOTAL SUPPLY | ENDING STOCK |
| FAR EAST, SIBERIA & MIDDLE EAST | ||||||||
| CHINA | 7.500 | 14.500 | 22.000 | 4.000 | 4.000 | 42.000 | 46.000 | 1.000 |
| RUSSIA | 500 | 17.000 | 17.500 | 500 | 500 | 40.000 | 40.500 | n/a |
| NORTH KOREA | 0 | 12.000 | 12.000 | 700 | 700 | 35.000 | 35.700 | 1.000 |
| AFGHANISTAN | 1.000 | 5.000 | 6.000 | 0 | 0 | 9.700 | 9.700 | 0 |
| PAKISTAN | 1.000 | 5.000 | 6.000 | 0 | 0 | 9.300 | 9.300 | 0 |
| SUBTOTAL | 10.000 | 53.500 | 63.500 | 5.200 | 5.200 | 136.000 | 141.200 | 2.000 |
| MEDITERRANEAN (Pinus pinea) | ||||||||
| PORTUGAL | 75 | 2.000 | 2.075 | 0 | 0 | 2.100 | 2.100 | 0 |
| TURKEY | 0 | 1.300 | 1.300 | 0 | 0 | 1.400 | 1.400 | 0 |
| ITALY | 0 | 400 | 400 | 0 | 0 | 500 | 500 | 0 |
| SPAIN | 500 | 500 | 1.000 | 0 | 0 | 630 | 630 | 0 |
| OTHERS | 0 | 110 | 110 | 0 | 0 | 435 | 435 | 0 |
| SUBTOTAL | 575 | 4.310 | 4.885 | 0 | 0 | 5.065 | 5.065 | 0 |
| WORLD TOTAL | 10.575 | 57.810 | 68.385 | 5.200 | 5.200 | 141.065 | 146.265 | 2.000 |
| WORLD CONSUMPTION (T. Supply – End. Stock) | 63.185 | 144.265 | ||||||
| Sources: China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export Foodstuff and other INC sources. |
Published: 16/10/2020
Copyright: www.rhumveld.com
