June 2022 Position Report
June 14, 2022
Objective Crop Estimate released, and 2nd largest shipping month in history.
As we near the end of the 2021 crop season, we are finally starting to get some of the good news that we have been waiting for all year.
The Objective Crop Estimate was released Friday, July 8th and came in at 2.6 billion pounds. This was followed by the June Position Report on Tuesday, July 12th. Total shipments for the month were 278 million pounds, this made June the second largest shipping month in history. Hopefully this is a sign that the port issues are now in our rearview mirror.
Year to date 2021 crop receipts are now 2,914,564,322 pounds, which is 6.07% below the 3,102,917,686 pounds received to date last June. The Objective Estimate’s 2.6 billion pounds landed 200 million pounds below May’s Subjective Estimate of 2.8 billion pounds. This would make the crop 12% smaller than 2021.
Total shipments for the month were 278.59 million pounds, this is an increase of 26.3% when compared to last year’s 220.50 million pounds. Export shipments were 214.67 million pounds, which is up 38.3% from last year and a new export record for June. Domestic shipments were 63.92 million pounds, this is down 2.0% versus last June’s 65.25 million pounds. At this point it looks like the industry should be able to maintain these strong shipping numbers throughout July and close the year out strong. While we will still end up with a record carryout, it looks like it will be between 750 and 800 million pounds. This is a huge reduction from the 1 billion pound estimates that were being thrown around months ago.
New sales for the month were 118.7 million pounds compared to 108.7 million pounds sold at this time last year. Based on a crop estimate of 2.915 billion pounds, the year to date sold position is 83.5%; this time last year, the industry was 91.0% sold.
Year to date the total sales for 2022 crop are now 236 million pounds compared to 326 million pounds sold to date last year.
It’s looking like the market will get a $0.10 to $0.15 bump from all the good news that these reports brought us. With that, we find ourselves in a similar situation as this time last year. We saw a decent price bump following the 2021 Objective Estimate and the industry sat back to see how high pricing would go. Due to the minimal participation the sold percentage continued to fall further and further behind. This forced handlers to play catchup and prices fell back down to pre-report levels. Hopefully, history will not repeat itself and California will continue to participate in sales at a steady price. This should allow prices to climb at a steady rate throughout the season.
