Oct. 2019 Position Report

October 14, 2019

Last month brought record-breaking shipment numbers.

The October Position Report was released Tuesday November 12th and set a new overall shipment record for the industry.

Total shipments for the month came in at 265.50 million pounds. This is up 7.4% from last October which held the previous shipment record of 247.11 million pounds. Export shipments were very strong at 202.95 million pounds and carried most of the weight to hit the new overall shipment record. Domestic shipments were just average at 62.55 million pounds and were down 8.3% from this time last year.

October’s new sales total 294.96 million pounds which is very impressive considering Septembers sales were 299.53 million pounds. It is rare to have two big months like this back to back. Year to date commitments through October currently total 693.97 million pounds which is up 18.31% (107MMlbs) from this time last year.

Harvest throughout the state is pretty much done aside from a few late re-shakes left to trickle in. Crop receipts to date are 1.59 billion pounds, up 2.36% from the October 2018’s total of 1.55 billion pounds. This still does not give us much insight into the 2019 actual crop size. Estimates continue to vary greatly depending on which growing region you talk to. The crop in the north is off as much as 40% some areas when compared to last year while many of the southern growers had record yields. Without a solid number to work with buyers are still purchasing based on a 2.4-billion-pound crop. At this time, it looks like we will not have any firm information about the actual crop size until the December position report comes out after the first of the year.

Overall, the report was very strong, demand remains high with two impressive months of new sales back to back and with the size of the crop still in question pricing should remain stable and possibly increase slightly over the coming weeks.