Published on 2019 2 21
The last paragraph of my October 2016 report was a market forecast/outlook. Now that enough time has passed to look accurately backwards with the keen knowledge of hindsight. How insightful was the crystal ball gazing, tarot card reading look into the future of the global quinoa market?
I write this as I prepare a full report on the Quinoa market to be published soon. My thanks to Andean Naturals especially my good friend and former partner Sergio Nunez De Arco and his team for supplying the monthly market prices used in this report card.
So at long last.. here is the forecast from the last report October 2016 (you can read the full report on Linkdn) ...
"I know many of you are being told the market for quinoa is going up. Well eventually it will but not any time soon there is mountains of Andean Gold in both Bolivia and Peru as well as the open capacity mentioned already. Combine the two and you have a buyers’ market..... Growth has slowed considerably from the 30% plus year over year hay days. The lower prices are still filtering their way thru the market with many retail contracts based on higher priced raw material so the low prices we have seen as importers is still not completely reflected in the retail price and it is unknown if price have gone low enough to spur significant increases in the industrial and food service markets. We also don’t know if the slowdown in retail is due to the high prices, market saturation or a combination of both. The market in the USA grew by about 7% 2015 43,000MT vs 2014 imports of 40,000MT ."
This chart shows white quinoa prices from November 2016 - January 2019
This chart shows white and red pricing for same period
The length of this depressed market proves the conclusions from the 2016 report a result of demand leveling off to single digit growth levels, saturation of the primary market driver CPG , processing capacity build out resulting in excess capacity and the resulting competition effecting processor margins and cash flow, competition from other sources of plant protein and the growth in large scale quinoa farming outside of Peru/Bolivia.
I will update you as to what changed and what the market situation is now in my next report as we manage this recent rally in quinoa prices and we look to new crop 2019/20 and beyond.
Please contact me to discuss any specific issues or questions about how to manage your quinoa requirements or to add your viewpoint or just hello and talk quinoa. I can be reached at 630-229-3507 or michael_harkins@comcast.net.
PS: whats next... what will be the catalyst to open new markets, drive new growth, bust open the doors of Quick Service, Industrial and Beverage markets?
The answer is large scale vertically integrated conventional quinoa... and it is here already you just didn't realize it.
Cheers,
Mike Harkins
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