California has witnessed some heavy rains by the end of October, which is having an impact on the quality – and thus quantity – of the walnuts which were still to be collected from the orchards. Looking at the crop receipts of October the harvest seems to be a bit behind compared to other seasons, which is making the impact of these rains percentage wise even bigger. The market for industrial grades hasn’t been very flourish lately, the impact of these rains seems to push even more product into the quality grading of this channel when it comes to color and low percentage of decent halves. Overall shipments from California are still behind, driven by both sea freight issues as well as soft demand from most export markets. It remains to be seen to which extend demand will gain momentum again once export markets return to the market to catch up with traditional imports. This will also provide more insight in the role which China has – and will – played as a walnut exporter, now the world slowly but surely seems to gain confidence in their quality and service. The situation in Eastern-Europe didn’t change much in the last few weeks, most exporters are well committed until the end of the year and not able to offer decent volumes for delivery within this year.
