As with all treenuts the market remains a little confused due to the uncertainty of the US import tariffs in the future. All is known until July 09 but what will be the impact on prices after July 09? Supply is OK and slightly down (especially Vietnam and Cambodia are down) in comparison with last year (as presented at the INC in Mallorca). Prices of RCN in West Africa are still quite firm and hard to make a profit on processing when we compare to the equivalent kernel prices. Especially in Benin and Burkina Faso, countries who closed their borders for export of RCN to protect the domestic processing factories, prices are very firm. Farmers are holding crop and hope/await better prices while Vietnam processors are reluctantly buying some quantity but not highly interested because of the concern on US demand. Demand in EU is good, spot stocks limited. Importers do not want to have long positions with the uncertainties. Transit time are also becoming a question mark those days as containers sometimes are hold up in transit ports for some days/weeks. Expectation is that this situation will continue in the coming weeks until more is known about the import tariffs. Remark to make is that we cannot wait too long as we will be at the end of the harvest season in some weeks from now and quality by the end of the crops is not becoming better. Our current recommendation would be to avoid open positions and watch the market closely. Make sure you have enough safety stocks to avoid being out of stock when shipments take longer. We visited our factory Afokantan Benin Cashew last week and it was great to see the developments and stocks coming in. we enjoyed meeting the people in Benin and see the enthusiasm of approx. 400 people working in this factory. You are more than welcome to visit them and get the African experience in an African processing factory! |