November 2024 Position Report

2024 Crop Quality 

The industry did not see much change in quality with this report. The weighted inedible percentage came in at 3.06%, compared to 3.07% last month. This is in line with what we are seeing at our own facility. The early varieties were fairly clean at the start of the season, but as we got into the pollinator varieties the inedible damages started to climb. Overall, the industry is still in a better spot than last year, but there’s still a lot of reject product that will need to be sorted out to maximize value.

Shipments

The total November shipments came in at 271.4 million pounds, which is up 13.9% from last year. This is an increase of 5%, or 12.9 million pounds from last month. Domestic shipments came in at 54.4 million pounds, down 9.8% from last month. On the other hand, export shipments came in at 216.9 million pounds, up 21.9%. The total November shipments are also a record for the month, with the last record for November being at 263 million pounds shipped in 2021. The industry expectations were between 220-250 million pounds, which was well exceeded this month by California packers.

Sales

New sales for the month came in at 209.5 million pounds, compared to 208.2 million pounds at this time last year. This brings the industry’s overall sold percentage to 46.9%. Industry expectations going into this report were sales around 210 million pounds, which is right in line with what was sold. The industry has continued to do a good job of maintaining both sales and shipments month over month.

Market Summary

The report was strong overall, with shipments exceeding expectations, sales in line with expectation, and the receipts coming in lower than anticipated. With that said, the dynamics of the market remain fairly unchanged. All major markets are uncovered for January forward shipments. The buyer’s hope for a bigger crop and lower prices seem to be dwindling. We should see continued demand coming into January as buyers will need to cover their Q1 and Q2 needs. When demand steps in prices usually slowly trickle up. India only shipped 640 containers this month. With inventory running low in the Indian inshell market, we are seeing more demand and pricing returning to premium levels compared to kernel pricing. The same goes for kernels. Buyers have been buying hand-to-mouth all year and will need to start resupplying the pipelines. We should see sales remain steady with the hope of a continued price increase, but that will take a few days to sort itself out. This dynamic is common after a shipping report.

Moving forward all eyes will be on next month’s receipts. As mentioned above, it does not appear that we will hit the objective estimate. During the month of October, the industry received 810 million pounds, the larges amount ever received in October. This is a testament to the hulling efficiency in California. The five-year average for November has been 528 million pounds. Last month the industry only received 496 million pounds, the second lowest amount in recent years. More and more hullers are also finishing up for the year, earlier than normal and receipts should continue to taper down. This is why we believe it will be hard for the crop size to reach the estimated 2.8 billion pounds, and most likely land closer to 2.7 billion pounds.

The Harris Woolf team will continue to monitor the market conditions daily. If you are reading this report and would like to join the HWA mailing list to receive these monthly updates, please click here.

Here at Harris Woolf Almonds we want to wish everyone a safe and Happy Holidays.