Market Report: Cashew

Vietnam is the leading supplier of cashews for the U.S. and the UK. While Vinacas, the Vietnam Cashew Association, is concerned about losing market shares in the U.S., things are more encouraging in the UK. Prices are also turning in different directions in the EU and India. (Mundus-Agri)

Due to the higher energy prices on gas and electricity, the general feeling is that it could affect demand dramatically because of the high impact it seems to have on the family’s budget. Not forgetting that the general bigger demand before Eastern and the Ramadan seems to be fulfilled now. In addition to this new crop, Vietnam and Cambodia have arrived, and which quality seems better than previously expected.

Comment of Aldebaran agent: The ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict has triggered significant consequences to the global supply chain and cashew industry in particular. There were shipments to Russia which had to be diverted to other ports to wait or change the route. Most big courier companies like DHL, UPS, FEDEX stop courier services from Vietnam to Russia, so Vietnamese packers cannot send documents to their buyers in Russia and have to send docs to another nearby country. Ocean freight/transportation is skyrocketing with the climbing price of petrol. Demand in the EU/US will likely be less compared to last year due to these impacts when final consumers/supermarkets are not willing to pay the high cost and/or they have to cut costs. (Aldebaran.com)

RCN prices have stabilized/firmed as well. Therefore, the conclusion might be that kernel prices should increase. This seems to be proven by the increased demand, but also the reluctance of the shellers to offer prices for the second have period of 2022 or First Half of 2023. A comment from our agent was as follows some time ago: “Like all people in the cashew industry understand that price of RCN is much higher compared to kernel price, no parity for processors, but this situation has been prolonging for several months already due to oversupply of kernels to the market. There likely be purification in the cashew industry and a big change with processors in Vietnam. Many big processors have the plan to reduce processing capacity as lowest as they can.

 Some processors/exporters will face difficulty in getting new financing from their bank because the bank sees clearly that there is no profit for processing, and they will scare to give loans to weak financing packers. Though processors get losses these days, many of them have to accept selling a stock at a loss because they don’t see an uptrend for nearby shipments. Some packers who get a loan from the bank may need to continue exporting to maintain financing from the bank. Otherwise, they have to pay back USD to their bank when the loan is matured. Some packers also need to process to maintain work for their workers. If not processed, the big company has to pay around 70% salary to their worker. Some company does not depend much on the bank, do not have pressure to keep works for workers then they close the factory and wait for a suitable time to operate again if they can find out matching between kernels and raw material“.(Aldebaran. com)