The Export Market for California Pistachios Are Doing Well

Richard Matoian is the Executive Director of American Pistachio Growers based in Fresno. He gives us a worldwide tour of how pistachios are moving.

“The Middle East had been a growing market, from about 5 million pounds to about 35 million pounds over the last three to four years. But demand there is off. When you look at the Middle East, there are certain countries where the shipman numbers remain the same.,” explained Matoian. “There are other countries where the numbers are off. So parts of the Middle East are transshipment areas to other parts of the world. And that's where we do see an impact.”

And competition from other countries is certainly impacting some shipments, noted Matoian. “Where we're dealing with product that in some cases is substantially lower priced than the US has an impact on where those buyers are going to choose to buy from,” Matoian said.

“And now looking at the continent of Europe, certainly COVID had an impact, but when you look at shipping numbers and you compare the current off year with the last time we had an off year, so this is 2019 crop versus 2017. We're actually ahead of shipments,” he said

“And in fact, through June of this year, we've actually shipped to Europe more than we did from the 2017 crop. So that's just showing you that when you make those kinds of more detailed comparisons and we're actually doing pretty well in Europe,” Matoian said.