In-shells

While entering the tail of the NH crop in-shell season, we see a significant drop in the quality out-turn. With ongoing showers in main harvest regions, farmers couldn’t do a proper sun-drying. The lower demand in recent months forced in-shell traders to store cargo much longer than usual in challenging environments.

In-shell processors have less of a concern as they covered early season majority of their annual needs within the first and second flush. Still, they also have their challenges as in-shell prices moved significantly lower, which puts pressure on their parities.

We started hearing increased numbers of renegotiations from in-shell importers in Asia. The main challenges for the in-shell exporters are delayed execution and high moisture/lower out-turn than expected.

Kernels

The challenges noticed within the in-shell market can be explained by the lower demand in Kernels for the last 6-9 months. We have seen main destination markets acting with a flashlight system, meaning they buy when they have a need and then straight off the market for some time.

On one side, destination processors claim demand has come off, while the other side, we started seeing significant promotions on the shelf across the globe. It’s likely a combination of factors where financing/warehousing has become a significant cost picture for the industry and therefore continue from a short position or just simply buy hand-to-mouth.

WW320 pricing is at a wide range depending on processor type with nearby shipments sub $2,40/lb FOB to $2,60+/lb FOB. Forward demand remains strong, but Kernel processors currently have no appetite to sell far forward in a most likely bottomed-out market.