Both pricing and availability remain stiff in Eastern-Europe. While global pricing of walnuts is much weaker compared to the last couple of years, are local suppliers of raw material still trying to keep their prices in line with last year claiming that the overall size of the crop is down. At the same time, demand for Eastern European walnuts seems to be slow this year as well, driven by a lack of confidence in the local demand in several southern-European countries. So far export pricing remained stable from the start of the season, it remains to be seen what will happen once the local market feels the pressure to sell their stocks of raw material. Earlier this week the report of October shipments from California was released. Shipments are slightly up compared to last year, mainly driven by strong increase of a few specific countries such as India, Israel and the UAE. Overall shipments were up 14% compared to October last year. Although this figure seems positive, one should not forget that the total crop estimation compared to last year is even higher than this 14%.
