Market Report - 13.08.2015 - Ozgur Tarim

I would like to share the latest developments with you in the Sultanas and Raisins Market.

Last week, the official estimation delegation declared their crop size expectation as 196.109 tons. Their estimation for 2014 crop was 328.167 tons.

Their estimation is lower by more than %40. The reason of such shortage is the hail and frost damages happened on various days. At the same time, following a big crop like 2014’s the productivity of the vineyards are also poorer.

If we question the accuracy of 2014 crops estimation, we believe the crop wasn't as big as 328 thousand tons.

Committee did a good job at that time but the reason we didn't agree was,  during the time frame between their deceleration till the harvest (due to the extreme temperatures) the brix content (sugar) of the grapes didn't improve as intended.

This resulted with a lower yield on drying. ( less sugar more water on grapes so more evoparation on drying). On our estimations, we declared 300-310 thousand tons.

As we are at the end of the season now, we see we were accurate with our estimation.

Last year end of the crop, the prices were too low and growers didn't want to sell. They were carrying about 30-40 thousand tons of fruit which was yet unregistered since it was not traded yet. This volume is registered into 2014 crops figures.

Whereas in 2015 crop we believe there is again going to be a beginning inventory of around 40.000 tons but this time it is registered since it is on the hands of the growers, merchants and exporters.

Fort he coming crop, it is really difficult to estimate. There is no homogeneity at the vineyards. We respect the delegation but we are more pessimistic. We believe crop is going to be somewhere between 170-180 thousand tons

Beginning of the season will be really difficult. Growers will start with very high price expectation.  We may see overvalued prices at some stages. But we don’t expect to see prices to decrease too much later on. As the crop is really short.

Berries will be big, so the up charges for mediums or smalls will also be very large.

Hopefully no additional damages from weather conditions  because we have had more than enough already.

Since last week, rain is coming to the region. Coming days are expected again. Big risk for diseases and hail. We see some growers already started to harvest their product to avoid diseases.

Although the sugar content is good enough at grapes (Considering the time), such risks on weather, so early harvesting is preventing sugar content from further improving.

One point we will need to focus will be the fresh grape export. Due to the economical problems at Russia, we may see a significant slow down exports of fresh grapes. These fresh ones might then be returned to dried.

But we don’t see this volume being more then 10-15 thousand tons of dried equivalent.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us for any further.

Regards