Last week was a rather interesting week. China announced a zero-tariff policy on 100% of imports from 53 African nations, including South Africa, through a new Economic Partnership Agreement. This could be an interesting development for the macadamia industry and particularly for South Africa, which is having some disadvantageous tariffs compared with other African countries, but also to Australia. When it will be fully implemented remains unclear, but it looks like all parties involved are very much in favor of trying to finalize this sooner rather than later. It sounds unlikely that it will already impact 2025 crop, but for 2026 it may impact the playing field quite a bit.
If we then look at the market and first look at supply the news we receive from South Africa is that the crop is quite a bit shorter than earlier anticipated. It is unclear what is causing this, but it looks like it is mainly impacted by weather conditions.
The same information also comes out of Australia, where the crop could even stay under 50K mton (Inshell). This is also quite a reduction from the current estimate of close to 56K mton.
From a demand perspective there is ongoing demand for high quality NIS from China, but as most product has been committed already and negative outlooks on the crop not a lot of business is done.
On kernel the situation remains the same where snacking styles are tight and given the fact that there is less product even tighter. It may be wise to cover your needs. On ingredient styles there is still quite some business that needs to be done. Prices are stable. There the situation around the tariffs is making US ingredient buyers still reluctant even though stock levels are low and that decisions need to be made. Our recommendation is to make sure that your snacking styles are covered and that you start looking at your positions on ingredients.