The Almond Board of California released the May Position Report on Thursday, June 12th. This is the 10th report for the 2024 crop year. Key highlights are below: 

Receipts

Receipts in April were 2.81 million lbs., up 538.5% from last May’s receipts of 439.80 thousand lbs. This brings total receipts for the crop year to 2.71 billion lbs., up 11.2% vs last year’s 2.44 billion lbs. Crop receipts have now crawled to a halt, likely ensuring a final crop size below 2.72 billion lbs.    

Shipments

Total shipments FTM were 211.76 million lbs., coming in below industry expectations of 230 million lbs. This shipment number is down 6.3% vs. last May’s 226.06 million lbs. Total shipments are currently 1.90% down vs last year’s strong shipments. This concludes the strongest period of last year’s shipments, CA will now look to make up ground vs last June’s 206 million lbs. and last July’s 179 million lbs.     

Domestic shipments were 51.03 million lbs., down 22.3% vs last year’s 65.65 million lbs. Domestic shipments had another bad performance vs. last year. This is now the third month in a row with a double-digit percentage drop YoY. Domestic shipment numbers have now been the lone concerning spot in what has otherwise been a strong almond marketing year. It is hard to place exactly what is causing this shift and exactly how to fix it, but it is important to point out this has been a multiyear trend and not a current development. Even when you take last year’s “strong” domestic shipment number of 728 million lbs., this was still lower than even the 17/18 crop year’s 735 million lbs. This slow down in demand started post COVID and was occurring even when almonds were at historical low prices. This points to more of a segment issue than almond pricing issue. Regardless many in CA will look for ways to improve domestic demand over the coming months and into next year.

Export shipments were 160.73 million lbs., which is 0.2% up vs last year’s 160.41 million lbs. Export shipments continued at a normal pace. This month brought Europe nearly flat with last year’s shipments. India and China now remain the only major markets down YoY. China is expected to remain so with tariffs on US almonds now at 45%, leaving this market to focus solely on Australia for their purchases. While India remains 3% down on the year, they have made up much ground over the last 3 months, and this trend is not expected to reverse as this market needs current crop inshell to supply their holiday season.   

Sales & Commitments: Total sales FTM were 88.99 million lbs., down 33.7% vs. last year’s sales of 134.19 million lbs. A slow down in sales was expected after a slow second half of the month observed by most industry members. With the subjective coming out at 2.8 billion lbs. most buyers and sellers saw this estimate as an uneventful number. This provided little enthusiasm to be in a rush buy or sell remaining crop. This same mentality bled over into the new crop sales that came in at 65.70 million lbs. This was 62% down vs. last May’s 173.12 million lbs.      

Commitments for the 2024 crop year stand at 402.31 million lbs., which is down 12.7% vs the 460.81 million lbs. from last year. The decreases vs. last year are led by the domestic market where unclear customer demand needs have led to a hesitancy to purchase more/have a committed position closer to their normal levels. With commitments lower on both new crop and current crop for both domestic and export markets business will need to start occurring in higher rates for both sides to layer on coverage. Global destination stocks are not seen as robust and with limited coverage from origin, buyers will need to start planning additional shipments soon. Inversely while CA has marketed a large portion of the 24 crop they will now quickly need to move onto the 25 crop as they are only 2 months away from receiving this crop into their processors.  

Uncommitted 2024 crop inventory sits at 495.22 million lbs., up 16.8% vs last year’s 423.96 million lbs. Uncommitted Inventory continues to drive lower now that receipts are all but done. This low uncommitted inventory has already seen some items start to dry up and be unavailable till new crop is harvested.  

In a Nutshell: 

The May Position Report was weaker than most of the reports we have seen this year. Most high-level numbers were down vs. the previous May; however, this was largely driven solely by the domestic market as opposed to the market at large. While domestically CA will look for answers on how to help consumption, it is still good to see strong shipments into many of the main export markets.   

With the crop year coming quickly to a close these position reports have less of an effect on the current crop market due to lower levels of available inventory. With that being said this report will likely have even more market participants waiting on selling/buying decisions till the last major crop estimate to be released in less than a month on July 10th.

Overall, this position report will likely push new crop and current crop pricing together quicker than expected due to lower shipments and sales than expected. While dramatic current crop pricing changes are not expected due to low inventory availability, we could see higher volatility on new crop pricing, especially with crop size sentiment still varied amongst both buyers and sellers.    

Link to Position Report