India Is an Important Market for California Almonds

When India Officials shut down their country last year due to the COVID pandemic, they realized they needed to open it back up to get food into the country, noted Mark Jansen CEO and president of Blue Diamond Almonds

“The problem is a lot of the workers in the ports are migrant workers and they were hundreds of miles away, by the time India officials made that decision. They had to work their way back through blockades to get back to the port regions of India,” said Jansen

“For about a three-week period, there really wasn't anything moving through India. And there was a question of if or when that market would open up. And so, I praised our global salespeople, including our agents in India for being able to work through that difficult process.

Jansen said that the industry had about $30 million of almonds stuck in a kind of a risky limbo situation for a number of weeks. “And not only were we able to ship and collect on that year, but we also sold another $ 30 million and sold and collected on that as well. India has some difficulties and while it's not an easy market to navigate, it is a very important market for us this past year,” said Jansen.

And if you look at that robust India market for California almonds, they're up 79% year to date.

“And so, India remains a really vital growing market for the California almond industry,” said Jansen.