Dear Readers,
We hope that everybody landed safely in the year 2018.
We, from The Raisin Company, wish you all a Healthy and Happy New Year.
What we hear and see, the crop in South Africa seems to come, sound and safely, into our and others direction/warehouses.
Again, puting your ear to the ground you can hear rumours/gossip of abt 70.000 tons totally, which shall be one of the better years and what is very important: the quality, sofar, is being mentioned: as excellent.
We shall see.
What is dominating the market now is however the CURRENCY.
Unless something unpleasant should be underway as far as the quality of the South African raisins, Thompsons as well as goldens is concerned, we can reckon on a good crop. What we mean however is that apart from the unpredictable weather patterns, the South African Rand is the most complicated of all other factors.
On the other hand it is quite simple. A weaker Rand could give a firmer price in Rand but of course…the other way around is also a possibility
Besides that we may be very grateful that there is a good demand for Thompson raisins, specially this year, just because the USA did not have a spectacular crop, to put it mildly.
A less positive factor is the golden medium raisin.
From a fair premium of US Dollars 300/400.- over the Thompsons and other qualities 10 years ago, the gap between the two qualities became, through the years, over more than US Dollars 800/1000.- per ton. Not to speak about Jumbos!!
In today’s market this will be impossible to match,because of the high prices Thompsons this year
This could mean that the majority of the famers will only look at the Thompsons and will slowdown the production of Goldens.
Time will tell and remains a guess of the time being as the new season is just about to start…..
We hope everybody will have a fine year.