May 2021 WALNUT MONTHLY MANAGEMENT REPORT AND DISCUSSION
The California Walnut Board (“CWB”) released the May 2021 Position Report. Our table of these figures are shown below:
MMR
This is the 9th month of the 2020-2021 walnut season. Again, there will be no use going through many of the percentages for various countries as the chart above says it all. The industry is 97.2% shipped/committed.
Receipts are 783,754 inshell ton compared with the prior year at this time of 650,179 inshell ton and compared to the estimate of 780,000 ton. Shell out rate is estimated at 43.7% this year versus 42.6% last year. This shell out rate is a 60 month rolling average.
Many packer to packer sales are happening as packers are at a point where they are finally assessing their contracts and their inventory and trying to see what “extra” they have or where they are short. Offers for Chandler are very scarce. Domestic light is a bit more available and CHP, CMP, LMP and LSP seem to be what most packers have albeit not much quantity.
Current Inshell and Kernel Prices
Prices are approximately as follows: Chandler LHP 20’s currently in the $2.75/lb to $2.90/lb range with limited supply. Domestic LHP is $2.35/lb to $2.50/lb range. Combo Halves and Pieces pretty much unchanged in the in the $1.85/lb to $1.95/lb range as that is a majority of the remaining inventory. Chandler halves are virtually not available.
Chile
Chile is yet to publish May numbers. Chilenut released April Position report with shipment of 9,586 tons compared to last year of 7,333 tons an increase of 30%. For the month of May 2020; UAE up 280%, Turkey up 108%, China down 81% and India down 10% compared to last year. Chile so far shipped 6.6% of their crop and needs to ship additional 135,000 tons for this season. Chilenut members are reporting 60-70% sold.
Transportation and Logistics
Transportation and Logistics has improved only slightly. Packers still are experiencing the shortage of vessels and containers so they still have many more loads to ship export.
Frost Damage and Hail Damage
Packers seem to have verified both frost and hail damage and very few packers expect tonnage as we had seen this past season. Most packers are in the 740,000 – 760,000 ton range for their estimates at present. The drought issue may be talked about more throughout the season.
CONCLUSION
The California Walnut Industry has sold or committed to sell 97.2% of the crop. Any further sales would eat into the carry over which generally is needed to enter into the season. Most Chilean packers are sold out and its becoming more difficult to find material out of Chile which will be great news for the CA packers as they will not need to compete with Chile when CA starts to ship. Chandler Halves are nearly impossible to find and Chandler LHP is very limited. Domestic LHP has moved up $.25/lb since the last report and will get more difficult to find as Chandler buyers switch over. It seems that this will be a long summer with limited walnut options. California is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in history and that will influence grower’s and packer’s minds going forward.