As global pecan supplies tighten, the pecan pieces market inches upward as buyers work to secure supplies. 

 

The world has continued to experience supply chain issues in most all industries. Almonds have a backlog of supply that is struggling to move out of warehouses, not due to demand, but rather due to issues with shipping.The shellers and packers have customers waiting for the almonds to ship but are having trouble finding carriers to ship the products in a timely manner. 

 

Pecans are also experiencing supply chain issues. With demand rising in the domestic market pecans are experiencing a slightly different supply chain issue, in the form of available products. When hurricane Micheal wiped out half of the Georgia crop several years ago, packers and shellers were able to fill the supply gap with on hand inventories.

 

Carrying a surplus of around 8 months supply, the pecan industry was well positioned to deal with the huge loss in supply. However over the past few years the inventory has struggled to recover as demand for pecans has continued to grow in the domestic market and has also seen growth in foriegn markets. Last year was a huge year for pecan shipments pushing the shipments total to around 465 million pounds. This is about 170 million pounds more than shipments just three years prior. 

 

While demand has been on the rise, the supply has struggled to climb as fast. Growers are planting feverishly across the southern US, but marketing dollars have demand outpacing the supply capacity. Fast forward to the current day, and we see pecan inventories have yet to recover. This has caused the pecan pieces market to continue to climb to 5 year highs. While the pieces market can be highly volatile in some years, this year has seen slow but steady increase holding close to halve prices and in some cases pushing higher than pecan halves. 

 

Current pecan supplies are down in North America, and the southern hemisphere is wrapping up with harvest. The current crop looks to be of good quality, but as the summer progresses we will see more of the crop shed. Currently the crop looks to be an on year however we still have 4 months to the finish line. Hopefully we will have a large enough crop to keep supply lines flowing without compromise to buyers.