The Price of Your Favorite Healthy Snack Is Plummeting
Good news for fans of almond milk, almond butter, and plain old almond-almonds: The price of this healthy nut is falling dramatically.
Almonds—known for being rich in calcium and vitamin E—have risen in popularity in recent years, becoming one of the most-frequently purchased nuts in recent years. That demand has caused a spike in nut prices, which peaked at well over $4 per pound.
Naturally, farmers picked up production of almonds as their popularity (and prices) rose. But overproduction has saturated the almond market. Since late 2014, almond prices at the wholesale level have dropped about 20%—equal to a loss of about $1.8 billion, NPR reported. The pricing decline is a result of production volume rising to unsustainable levels, farmers say.
Mother Jones pointed to data indicating that the wholesale prices for almonds paid by supermarkets and other large buyers have dropped from a high of $4.70 per pound last August to $2.60 more recently. In the same way that wholesale price increases are passed along to the average consumer in the form of price hikes, a decrease in wholesale price should result in cheaper prices in stores for almonds and products featuring almonds.
The rollercoaster ride for almonds came about because as prices rose over the past several years, farmers, particularly in California, began planting them in bulk, replacing fields of lower-priced crops such as grapes and cottons. At the same time, the value of the dollar increased significantly. This caused an increase in almond prices in markets like China and India, on which nut producers heavily rely. Due to an excess in supply, prices have fallen below $3 per pound.
"We probably pushed the price up too high," Darren Rigg, who handles more than 50 million pounds of nuts for Meridian Growers in Tulare, Calif., told NPR. "It killed off demand, and people at a certain point, they just don't buy."
Still, some almond producers remain optimistic that booming sales from the past several years will sustain their profit margins for a while.
"Having a couple of good years has given us a good foundation," almond grower Joe Del Bosque told NPR. "We're not panicking."