Almond Market Report

April 12, 2024

Market Update:

The Almond Board of California released the "March Position Report" yesterday, April 11th. This is the eighth report for the 2023 crop year. Key highlights and takeaways are below:

Receipts:

Receipts in March were 27.89 million pounds, up 56% from last March’s receipts of 17.88 million pounds and receipts are continuing to trickle in. Numbers for the month of March are slightly up from last year and we still expect receipts to finalize near 2.45 billion pounds.

Shipments:

Total shipments for the month of March were 237.04 million pounds, coming in above industry expectations of 220 million pounds. As expected, total shipments were down 15.7% versus the record of 281 million pounds set last year. March marks the conclusion of the high shipment window of the 2022 crop and the 2023 crop will now face average shipment numbers of 192 million pounds for the remainder of the year.

Domestic shipments were 62.45 million pounds, down 6.0% versus last year’s 66.44 million pounds. Domestic shipments remain in the 57 to 63 million pounds range that we’ve seen this crop year. While we have not seen growth in this market, shipments have remained extremely consistent and we expect this pace to continue for the remainder of the crop year.

Export shipments were 174.59 million pounds, which is 18.7% down versus last year’s 214.63 million pounds. Export shipments had the most significant decrease year-over-year. This is the first month that we have seen of this crop year where all major export markets were down. That being said, exports remain up 3.44% on the year. With a smaller crop now all but guaranteed for the 2023 crop compared to last year, we expect shipments of low available items will affect shipments into India and the ME as the crop year comes to a close.

Sales & Commitments:

Total sales for the month were 181.67 million pounds, up 26.5% versus last year’s sales of 143.60 million pounds. Even with the lowest sales number for the year, California still managed to beat last year's sales number. Early March sales started off slow due to an above average bloom which lowered prices. We saw customers come back into the market to cover once price settled in the second half of the month. We expect California to continue its aggressive sales pace for the remainder of the crop year.

Commitments:

Commitments for the 2023 crop year stand at 575.53 million pounds, which is down 11.08% versus the 647.23 million pounds from last year. Commitments went below the 600 million pounds mark for the first time this crop year, which was driven by shipments surpassing sales by a larger margin than we have seen this year. With customers now buying more consistently in April, we expect this number to once again bounce back next month.

Uncommitted inventory currently sits at 774.49 million pounds, down 12.11% versus last year’s 881.15 million pounds. With the smaller crop now guaranteed, available inventory to sell is now less versus last year. With four shipment reports left in the crop year, we will likely see this remaining inventory mostly sold by the end of it.

In a Nutshell:

The industry was preparing for a significant drop in shipments versus last year. While the industry still slipped versus last year, shipments ended up being better than expected.

This better-than-expected shipment news, along with average sales, will likely bring some more support to current market prices. The March period also represented the last significant shipment number from the 2022 crop and now the 2023 crop will be going against lower historical numbers for the remainder of the year.

While overall this was a better-than-expected report, we will now see the attention shift to the early crop estimates. TNT is expected to release their "Nursery Report" in the coming weeks and this new information will likely affect pricing more so than this "March Position Report."

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