Raisins 2008

Catz Internation B.V

In South Africa harvesting and drying has started. The temperature is a little bit lower then usual and several (short) rain periods have been reported. This will result in short delays for the first shipments (compared to the usual shipping period) and this will of course have its affect to the limited supplies in Europe.

Crop is quality wise reasonable, however quantity wise figures have been downscaled from 45.000 Mton to 36.000 Mton. Expectations will be the highest opening prices since several years.
Different Californian shippers are quoting different prices for raisins.

There is still a big gap between the highest and the lowest offer, but overall an increase is easily noticeable. With a lack of free capacity to load enough containers on vessels, we see an increase of abt. 20% only on shipment rates.

In Chile there seems to be a challenge going on who can offer at the highest rate. Crop has delayed and demand is enormous with all local stocks being empty. Quotations are at the moment abt. 20% higher (in USD) then opening prices a couple of weeks ago.

The Turkish market is controlled by the shippers. Under normal circumstances a good crop is expected next season with more supply for sure.