6 Almond Facts
JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2015
President’s Corner
Mark Jansen
President and CEO
Almond Prices: A New Normal
The spectacular and extended rise in almond prices has the industry concerned that we have reached the
peak. Many of you have lived through rising and falling prices. You may even recall there has been a fve-year
pattern to almonds prices. As we enter the ffth year of rising prices, rather than avoid the elephant in the
room, it is important the industry understand why this time is different.
The pricing cycles of previous decades were based primarily upon changes in supply. Bad blooms led to high prices, and
increases in bearing acres, coupled
with good blooms, led to declining
prices. The last fve years have been
different. Demand has been the
primary driver of pricing. While
supply expectations infuenced prices
in the short term, the trend was
consistently upward. Even the record
2 billion pound crops of 2011 and
2013 resulted in higher prices. Rising
demand for almonds and new forms
of almonds, driven by
Blue Diamond
marketing activities, have fully
consumed even these large increases
in supply. Demand, not supply, has
driven prices for most of this decade.
If demand is the key driver of this
market, the question is whether
almonds are still a value. Three years
ago I shared the Warren Buffet quote,
“Price is what you pay, value is what
you get.” In looking at the other tree
nuts, almonds are now much more
appropriately priced, but they are still
a value. As the healthiest, best tasting
and most versatile tree nut, almonds
have a uniquely strong demand.
With the 2014 harvest, shortage of
supply took over as the primary driver
of market pricing. The yield on the
2014 crop was 12 percent below the
National Agricultural Statistic Service
expectation and was a statistical
outlier from any forecasts based upon
history. A convincingly good bloom
and an apparently good crop in the
$0.00
$0.50
$1.00
$1.50
$2.00
$2.50
$3.00
$3.50
$4.00
94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14
Price / Lb
Global Almond Pricing
Est.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
1.4
1.6
2.0
1.9
2.0
1.85
California Almond Crop
NASS
Estimate
2.1