The New Year has started.
We wish all our Readers a very Healthy and Happy New Year with enough tasteful raisins at acceptable prices.
Because the situations in California and Turkey are more than well known meanwhile, everybody’s eyes are now focused on the new crop in South Africa, which is the first now in the row.
The coming two weeks will be very exciting for the farmers, the packers and the buyers of South African raisins. The question is: at what sort of levels the new crop raisins shall be handled.
If we listen carefully to the farmers, the crop should be pretty good and the total quantity is estimated on or around 40.000 tons. We shall see!!
This means that the initial idea of 30/35.000 tons, because of the bad weather at the beginning of the season, can be left aside
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Of course it is positive to have a fair-sized crop but taking into account that there is a carry-over between 15/20.000 tons of last year, the consequence will be that roughly some 60.000 tons must find a home somewhere.
Of course we realize that Turkey was at least 80.000 tons short but this shortage could easily be covered by the surplus of the Californian crop.
Anyhow, it remains a question mark where the possible surplus of these goods will end up and what kind of impact it shall eventually have on prices.
This applies for W.P. and Thompsons.
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For Goldens the situation is different:
the quality-buyers still go for the superb quality of the golden mediums and if available, for the jumbos and that goes together with a different psort of pricing.
How funny it may sound but as long as packers do not have the goldens in the factory, respectively as long as they have not agreed upon prices with the farmers, concrete prices for the goldens cannot be given.