6
Almond Facts
MARCH | APRIL 2015
PRESIDENT’S CORNER
President’s Corner
Mark Jansen
President and CEO
Blue Diamond's
business model is
unique frommost other California
almond handlers and here's why…
We are still the world’s largest and best seller of Nonpareil almonds with market expertise in the 93 countries which
purchase our brown almonds. This heritage business remains very important
to
Blue Diamond’s
customers and our growers. The
Blue Diamond
brand
is the gold standard of quality; our 105 years of experience and
unique, personal customer access position our co-op for continued
market leatdership.
In 2010,
Blue Diamond’s
executive team, with the support of
our board of directors, determined that the co-op would
deliver the greatest return to its growers by transitioning
into a global branded manufacturer of almonds.
Manufacturing, marketing and selling value-added
products is now our core business. Fully two-thirds of
our 2013 crop revenue came from value-added products.
With the 2015 crop, we will reach 70 percent of value-
added sales.
We have been so successful in growing your
Snack Almond,
Almond Breeze, Nut*Thins
and ingredients businesses that value-
added products consume nearly every pollenizer almond variety
delivered. This is important to grower return as value-added
sales are higher margin and pollenizers sell at a discount to Nonpareil
(typically about $.50 less). The other 100-plus handlers in California mostly
sell their pollenizers in the commodity brown almond space. As a result, there is a substantial advantage in
Blue
Diamond’s
grower returns for Carmel, Monterey, Butte, Padre and California-type varieties.
Innovation is one of our four core values at
Blue Diamond
. In fact, every major product innovation in the history of
California almonds has come from
Blue Diamond
, a tradition key to our
continued growth.
Blue Diamond Snack Almonds
represent 21 unique items in the average U.S.
grocery store. This variety has driven snack almond consumption in the U.S.
There is a clear correlation between a retailer expanding their
Blue Diamond
Snack Almond
assortment and the growth of their category sales throughout all
snack nuts. In supporting this growth, we are launching our spiciest almond
ever, Sriracha, joining one of the hottest flavor trends in the U.S. Our R&D
team has once again demonstrated their expertise in capturing the essence of
flavor in a roasted almond. Look for it in grocery stores this spring.
Value-Added Sales
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Commodity
