April 2025 Position Report
The news feed was quite busy this week. The 2025 Subjective Almond Forecast was released on Monday, May 12th. Based on this report, NASS is currently estimating that the 2025 crop will be 2.8 billion pounds. They are using 1.39 million bearing acres and a yield per acre of 2,010 pounds. This was followed by the ABC April Position Report that was released on Tuesday, May 13th providing some more insight to further analyze the 2024 crop size, sales, shipments, and other dynamics that will drive the market going forward.
2024 Crop Receipts
Another 8.2 million pounds of receipts were reported for the month of April. This brings our year to date total receipts to 2.709 billion pounds. At this point in the season the 2024 crop receipts won’t have any impact on the market going forward. The pounds that trickle in over the next few months won’t amount to much.
Shipments
Total shipments for the month were 241.1 million pounds. This is pretty much on par with April of 2024 and 8.9% higher than last month. Export shipments came in at 187.8 million pounds, up 6.3% from last year and a new export record for April. Domestic shipments came in at 53.3 million pounds, down 17.8% from last year. The domestic shipments have been extremely low for the second month in a row. The price increases over the last couple of months might have slowed the domestic customers’ buying habits while they evaluate the market, but luckily the strong export market has picked up the slack. If total shipments continue at this pace, we are still on track for carryout between 450-500 million pounds.
Sales
New sales for the month of April were 192.5 million pounds, down from 218.6 million pounds last year. These new sales put the industry’s overall sold percentage at 81.6% and keeps us right in line with the ten-year industry average. Last year at this time we were 82.4% sold. While it looks like sales have fallen off when comparing them to last month and the previous year, this was actually the second highest April sales on record. Historically, April tends to be one of the lowest sales months of the year.
Market Summary
Following the release of the subjective estimate, there were some attempts from buyers to put downward pressure on the market due to the 2.8 billion pounds being towards the higher end of most estimates. Luckily, the strong position report getting released the next day cancelled out any negative sentiment that the subjective estimate created. Going forward, 2024 crop prices are expected to remain stable with sales continuing at a steady pace. The 2025 crop sales are currently in a bit of a standoff. Buyers are looking for steep discounts against the current crop prices, but California handlers aren’t willing to acquiesce at this time. As we get closer to harvest and as 2024 product continues to dry up, I’m sure buyers and sellers will come to an understanding and 2025 sales will start picking up. The Harris Woolf team continues to monitor everything going on in the market and will keep you up to speed as things change.
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