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Pumpkinseed kernels:
The crop will be smaller as alternatives compete for land, and the carryover from 2010 makes farmers further lose their appetite for pumpkin. Demand has not recovered from the disaster of a couple of years ago.
Shine skin, as advised last month, we see a smaller crop than 2010 and this is compounded further by smaller fruit yielding less seeds.
Sunflower seed kernels:
Eastern Europe remains the most competitive source and the size of their harvest shows potential to weaken further, although EU demand for this region could prevent this, as the currency turmoil plays its part in the economics of commodity supply. China and USA crops are down, China due to farmers switching to more marketable crops, eg. Maize and dry conditions in the USA. Oil demand is the key to pricing and therefore although the large Eastern European crop indicates a regional weakness we believe all other factors add strength to this market.
Linseed:
The UK harvest is still coming in and although winter sown variety look good the spring sown material is poorer quality. Very little yellow linseed has come to market yet. As usual in the UK farmers leave this crop to last and so often quality deteriorates whilst it waits to be collected in. Price pressure is coming from Kazakstan where cheap, good quality material is abundant. Disappointing crops and quality out of Canada will impact the oil market so an eye should be kept on this origin too.
Sesame seed:
India:
Concerns over the excessive rains damaging 50% of the UP/MP crop have largely disappeared from the market and the sudden price increase has corrected again. China is rumoured to be significantly down (20-25%) and this is causing concern that demand will come. Having said this, the expectation of China entering the market keeps all ‘local’ traders talking for days! Africa still holds stock and is seeing little demand. There was a food alert over West African sesame in the last month being contaminated with polycyclic hydrocarbons which indicate smoke contamination during drying. The Indian harvest is only a few weeks away, and currently we expect the market to remain stable.
Central American:
Everywhere pretty much sold out of old crop now. Plantings in Guatemala were good and it is hopeful the crop will be back to normal levels of 18-20000mt , more than double the 2010 harvest
Hulled millet:
Ukrainian material plentiful and at good prices, USA not competitive.
Poppy seed:
An interesting scenario currently. Europe has very large stocks of Australian material due to recent bankruptcy of major trader. This is depressing the market, and is likely to continue for some time. The morphine processors all have large stocks but are wanting high prices for the new crops, which currently are not achievable. The EU is under consultation regarding morphine levels in the seed, and it is widely expected will legislate sometime in the future restricting morphine content to 20ppm for bread use and 4ppm for direct consumption. This will make all morphine grown poppy seed unusable in its raw form. We feel this is sometime away, but will create a more significant two tier market, with Czech Republic and Turkey the only real source of raw low morphine poppy.
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We hope this brief update assists and look forward to hearing from you in due course.
Telephone 0044 (0)1372 230020
Fax: 0044 (0)1372 748597.
www.unicorningredients.com
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