Almond Market Update - March 4, 2021
Another month is on the books for 2021. The almond bloom progressed very quickly and is all but complete for the later varieties. We are seeing increased petal fall each day now and many orchards are showing leaf growth with nutlets forming on the early varieties.
It has been another bloom free of any weather events, just as we saw last year. California runs at 59% to normal with the snow pack and it remains another dry winter here in the valley. It should be noted that we can still have some strong storms come through in March and we remain hopeful that this will be the case. Typically our rainiest months are in this order: January, December, February and finally March. If we have a repeat of last year, we have a good chance of making up for the dry season so far.
The almond market has been up and down for the last two weeks, both in sales and pricing levels. The market continues to find itself, and when it reaches the bottom, the grower support disappears. When prices start rising again, the buyers seem to rest. With the February shipping report coming out next week on March 11th, this should help to set the stage for the months ahead, and give us a peek of what is to come for the remaining crop year.
Week 9 Update:
Bullish Trends:
- Shipments for the month of February have been better from an industry perspective and should show a rebound from January.
- Pricing has remained very good, trading in a narrow band of $0.03 to $0.05/lbs., adding confidence to buying activity and solidifying that the bottom has been reached.
- Production for ingredients is for the most part full through April with any new demand being pushed to May and June time periods.
Bearish Trends:
- We continue to see heavy congestion at the ports with no end in sight. This is having a profound effect on export shipments and will be realized on the shipping reports for the foreseeable future.
- With a billion pounds of uncommitted inventory and pressure at the ports remaining, inventory will be difficult to move.
- Another excellent bloom has all but guaranteed another year of large supply to work through.
Check out the latest video with an aerial view of our orchards...
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