Dehydrated Fruits

In general, the weather in Thailand is moving to summer period after long time cool temperature from last year. A lot of plantation area currently does not have enough water supplies for their plants especially in the North and Eastern part of Thailand. Thai government report that the drought situation this year will become severe if there is no rain during these couple months.

Please find below our market update for your reference.

-          Pineapple quantity is reduced as per our estimation. The main season is already finished. Pineapple raw material price is starting to increase now due to shortage period. The second crop will available again during April-May/June (small crop). However, the crop size will depend on the water / rain as well. Please consider to build up pineapple in inventory before June. Expect price will be slowly increasing according to market.

-          Pineapple core, there is no improvement of Pineapple core situation same as Pineapple. We still confirm our recommendation to consider in building up inventory for Pineapple core product before off season. Price adjustment will be need as raw material price increase. We expect shortage from June-October. New coming season will be in October.

-           Papaya natural red, our production managed to find suitable supplier per our required quality during January. However, the season of Papaya is about to finish so we can only buy some quantity to average our cost this year. We are currently bringing down our offer price for natural red papaya to reflect our cost. Please consider master contract for this season accordingly.

-           Papaya raw material for color added, price remain high compared to last year. We expect raw material should be shortage before new coming Papaya crop in late August / September 2014.

-          Mango, season will start in late March / early April. We will keep you posted on mango situation again during March. Our inventory of mango should be able to cover our usage till the new season arrives. We estimate availability should be similar to last year as season arrive earlier. We also expect the price will be stable as current pricing.

-           Ginger, due to we received high demand of ginger from various customers this year. Our current raw material in inventory is already near finish. We will have to put our offer on hold during this period to recheck our stock. New season of ginger will be in August. Quality and crop size still not yet known. We will keep the market posted on ginger accordingly.

-          Cantaloupe, season is about now. Price still firm at high level.

-          Kiwi, due to high demand of kiwi order from last couple months, we expect that some shortage may be seen before new kiwi season in October.

-          Strawberry, raw material in our inventory is now finished. New strawberry season will be in June / July. First available shipment will be in August / September. Will keep you posted soon after we received update information on this item.

  

External Factors

·         Unease political situation in Thailand still keep on going. The new election is still not success with many obstructions. Farmers also have consequence effect due to shortage of money from the government project on the rice policy.

·         Many government offices cannot operate their work as normal situation due to protestors try to close the entrances and not allow officers / people to get into. However, the business activity still keeps on going as usual. Only some delay in getting document from government office may be seen in certain period.

·         Thai Baht fluctuates between 32.20-32.80 THB/USD. This may help in slow down the price increase.

·         Freight rate still stay at high level from January 2014.

There are more market updates available on apple, star fruit, peaches, guava, coconut, etc.  There was too many for me list here.  If you need a specific market update, please contact me directly.

-T. Kim