Quality, Food Safety of American Pistachios Pushes Back on Competition

Pistachios grown in California and other Western States are the highest quality in the world, but there's still competition trying to drive the price down. Richard Matoian is Executive Director of American Pistachio Growers. He speaks about that competition.

“There is Iran, and kernels from Turkey, and as I say, as Iran production goes, so does potential sales all around the world, especially in those markets that tend to be more price-sensitive,” explained Matoian.

Matoian has more thoughts to counteract the competition. “American Pistachio Growers is the entity, that's working to reduce trade barriers around the world or the entity that's promoting American-grown pistachios for our high quality, our high food safety and continue to promote around the world,” said Matoian. “And in fact, 80% of our budget is being spent on promoting our member-growers product around the world.”

And the mantra of American Pistachio Growers has always been: Market ahead of the anticipated production. “And that's what we're going to continue to do, because we know we need to build consumer demand around the world,” said Matoian. “So I see that stable pricing is going to be there in the long term. In the short term, there could be some ups and downs, but I do believe that we're going to continue to see stable pricing in the pistachio industry in the long term.”