Walnut Market Update – March 2022
In the USA, the February walnut shipment figure was 62,014 tons. Against last years figure of 6,604 tons, this shows a decrease of less than 1%. So far for 2021 crop, the industry is reported to have shipped 373,645 tons, compared to the same time last year of 2020 crop of 457,524 tons. This shows a decrease of 17.3%. The final crop receipt figure for 2020/2021 crop is 720,163 tons, an 8.3% drop from the figure of 785,000 tons for 2019/2020 crop. It was predicted that 2021 crop would be around 680,000 tons, which was underestimated by around 5%. February 2022 versus 2021 shipments of inshell walnuts were down by around 5%. Overall inshell figure is down 42.53% with kernels up by 8.1%. Chilean crop is expected to face similar issues to that of the USA crop along with the ability to ship goods. Chilean crop is expected to be around 170,000 tons, an increase of 20% in comparison to last season, and expected to be very good quality, which may see end users switching if the price is attractive enough. USA combination and light halves will continue to face downwards pressure due to limited marketing opportunities and larger supply this season due to untimely rains during the harvest season.
Key areas are:
- Turkey inshell down 47.4%
- UAE inshell down 42.27%
- Japan kernels up 19.11%
- Middle East/Africa inshell down 40.25%
- Germany kernels up 19.9%
- Europe kernels up 16.51%
We continue to see major delays in getting all forms of goods into the UK across all sectors. With empty containers being hard to come by in order to ship goods to vessel space becoming more sparse, we still anticipate further delays into the coming months.