Dear Readers,
In the past two weeks, we have, literally, been been through the vineyards in South Africa to see the crop from nearby, so to say.
It was disappointing to notice that the total tonnage of goldens was much smaller than we expected, despite the market was/is talking about a big crop, not to say a bumper crop. Specially on the jumbos, the yield was much smaller than expected. Besides that the percentage of really big jumbos was, in most cases, not more than 45/50 percent maximum.
Also the availability of good, first class, mediums was less than expected.
Henceforth there is still a very good demand for really first class golden mediums, bolds and jumbos. Not only for prompt shipment (Ramadan) but also for the later months and logically: when the demand is bigger than the supply prices go up again.
At least as far as golden raisins are concerned.
A total different situation we find with the Thompsons. In our idea there is really a surplus on this type but not being sure about this years crops in Turkey and California (taking the bad omens in Turkey and drought and still high prices in California into consideration) we foresee that it will not be too big a problem to find a good market for this quality, later in the year.