General
The Covid-19 lockdown continues to impact on business in most parts of the world. Here in the UK, businesses in many sectors employing hundreds and thousands of workers, such as hospitality, restaurant and catering, travel and leisure and non-essential retail have temporarily closed and the workers furloughed or laid off. Even though the government have announced a substantial package to help out workers and businesses, it is feared that many of the smaller and weaker businesses, which would also include start ups which would have had a promising future under normal circumstances, will not survive this tumultuous period. For businesses who do survive this period, sustainability of demand will certainly be something to be concerned about.
Supplies will be an even greater concern with lockdown in several countries leading to delayed shipments. Many manufacturing facilities, especially in non-food related sectors, will close down permanently in many cases. Food supplies have been more resilient owing to demand being relatively buoyant globally. However, there have been some constraints on the logistics side of food distribution.
Desiccated Coconut
The Philippines are facing total lockdown in the most important coconut producing area, Luzon. Suppliers are well behind on order shipments and have therefore withdrawn from the market.
The situation is very similar in Sri Lanka due to the curfew (due to Corona virus). However, workers have started coming back to work after a month long lay off. Suppliers are trying to first prioritise shipment of pending orders and have therefore temporarily withdrawn from the market.
In Indonesia, there has been a shortage of availability of raw material coconut for quite sometime and this situation persists. There is also talk about a lock down . Indonesian suppliers had, for a short while, loosened their prices in order to get orders moving. However, this period may soon be coming to an end as they report that demand continues to be there from Europe, Americas and the Middle East.
We do have Desiccated Coconut Fine and Medium to offer spot for pallet loads and containers which are on the water. Our suppliers are all GFSI accredited ( as we are) and our products are nearly all sulphites free.
Other Coconut
We are offering Coconut Milk (17% Fat) and Coconut Cream ( 24%) Fat from both Sri Lanka and Indonesia. All products are additive free and all are packed in 20 kg aseptic bags.
Creamed Coconut – Creamed Coconut Blocks (200 g) or Flaked Cream Coconut (14 kg cartons) or Coconut Cubes – is produced exclusively for Edible Solutions by our partners in Indonesia. The product is additive free. Private label packing is available against orders. Flaked Cream 14 kg currently in stock. Price moves along with price of DC.
Coconut Chips – Raw and Toasted. We are currently out of stock of these two lines. In fact this is the result of the Corona virus related curfew in Sri Lanka from where we import. We are hopeful of having stock in June.
Coconut Chips Flavoured – a range of flavours available for snacking and crunchy cereal and salad mixes. Chilli Lime, Pineapple and Caramel Sea Salt flavours currently available. We may have some product which we are giving out free for trial and sampling. Please enquire with us.
Coconut Sweet Twine – new stock is available.
Dates
We are currently offering Aseel variety Pitted Dates of Pakistan origin. The Aseel Diced Dates are of a Premium quality with max 5% rice flour and max 1 pit for every 500 kg. The cut is standard 8-10 mm. We also offer Sayer Diced Dates of the same size.
Our recent product introductions include a soft Zahedi Date Paste and Date Syrup. These are ideal natural sweeteners for ready meals, condiments and pastes and bakery usages.
Sesame Seeds
We are temporarily out of stock of Hulled and Natural Sesame Seeds. We hope to be in stock by end May beginning June.
Sesame prices have come off due to lower demand from Asia but suppliers are reporting healthy demand from Europe. Hence the lower prices may be short lived.
We do have some Toasted Hulled and Natural Sesame to offer spot (small quantities only).
Nuts Selection
Almonds
Crop receipts have been too good, pushing away buyers. Prices have fallen dramatically. New crop is offered at $0.05/lb discount to current. Corona virus and price falls are causing problems in market such as Middle East, China, India, with reports of defaults already occurring. We feel prices have fallen to levels where buyers should be covering some if not all of their requirements.
Cashews
Splits and pieces are at very cheap levels, pieces are at 10 year+ lows. We are recommending all buyers to take long cover on these grades. The market will turn as it always does. The market on wholes not so certain. We believe prices could fall further as new crop arrives. Many Vietnamese processors are saying prices are already too low and have stopped processing. Seed prices can of course come down further if demand can not be resurrected.
Hazelnuts
TMO sold some of its holding, but at high prices. Shippers do not want to lower their levels, but again demand is driving prices lower. Contracts are not being delivered to Italy as it continues its shut down. Of course Ferrero is the biggest user of hazelnut in the world and is located in Italy. Bids that were not confirmed yesterday are being confirmed today.
Pistachios
Some cheaper Iranian material has entered the UK market making kernels and inshell more readily available. The Iranian product is offered better than US prices. We are not stocking the Iranian as we do not have the traceability for our BRC requirement.
We publish monthly Price Lists and our March edition is out now. Email us on [email protected] in case you would like to have a copy, mentioning your name, the name of your company, your location and a brief introduction about yourself and we will get back to you.
The Sales Team
Edible Solutions Limited