December 2025 Position Report
The Almond Board of California December Position Report was released on Tuesday, January 13, providing some more insight to further analyze the 2025 crop size, sales, shipments, and other dynamics that will drive the market going forward.
2025 Crop Receipts
There were 324 million pounds of receipts reported for the month of December. This brings our year-to-date total receipts to 2.51 billion pounds. Looking back at the last five years, crop receipts through December have represented 90% to 95% of the total crop size. If we take the midpoint and assume that 92.5% of the 2025 crop has been delivered to date, we would be looking at a total crop size of 2.71 billion pounds. We will continue to monitor the crop receipts through the rest of the year, but the late-season delivery volumes aren’t expected to move the needle much in either direction.
Shipments
Total shipments for the month were 245.8 million pounds. This is 5.4% higher than December of 2024 and 11.4% higher than last month. Export shipments came in at 196.7 million pounds, up 11.1% from last year and set a new export record for December. Domestic shipments came in at 49.1 million pounds, down 12.4% from last year. Year-to-date shipments currently trail last season by 6.5%. The industry will need to ship an average of 225 million pounds per month for the rest of the season to catch up to 2024 and keep the carryout below 500 million pounds.
Sales
New sales for the month of December were 196.7 million pounds, up from 182.5 million pounds last year. Overall, the new sales weren’t too bad, as December tends to be on the lower side due to the holidays. This puts the industry’s overall sold position at 50.1% based on a 2.7 billion pound crop, which is currently 2.5% behind last year’s total sales at this time.
Market Summary
This was the report everyone has been waiting for ever since the 3.0 billion pound objective estimate was released in July. We now have enough delivery data to know that the 2025 crop will land somewhere around 2.7 billion pounds. This is slightly higher than many in California were predicting and won’t bring the price bump that everyone was hoping for based on the industry’s current sold position. On the bright side, having a better grasp on the crop size will hopefully give buyers the confidence to start purchasing larger amounts of product, rather than the “hand to mouth” strategy they have been utilizing recently.
The shipments and sales for the month were good, but California is still slightly behind on our year-to-date totals. At this time, we still have the last half of the year to catch up and keep the carryout at a manageable level.
Overall, the December report has been viewed as neutral. How almond prices will be impacted going forward will be determined over the next week or two. It will all depend on the supply and demand balance. Many buyers have been waiting for this report to start increasing their purchases. This could help prices if we see strong and consistent demand going forward. On the other side of the coin, a good number of growers have been waiting for this report to start selling their 2025 crop. If too many growers try to sell at once, it could overwhelm the market and drive prices down. The HWA team will continue to monitor the market conditions and keep everyone updated.
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