Walnut Procurement Companies Slowed Down Exports and Earned Nothing

This was stated to UNIAN by Andrii Lapa, owner of Gorihovod, a company that produces equipment for nut processing.

He emphasized that 90% of walnuts are grown by households. Usually, procurement companies or intermediaries buy walnuts from individuals in Ukraine and then sell them in bulk to exporters, who process the nuts, remove the shells and ship the kernels abroad.

According to Andrii Lapa, this season intermediaries destabilized the market with price fluctuations. This was not difficult to do, given the market’s informal and spontaneous nature.

«Local procurement companies, which consolidate walnut batches, buy nuts from the population. In the race to secure walnuts, they raised the price to a level where it became too high. Up to a certain point, the price still remained competitive. But then Chilean and American walnuts arrived in Europe at the same price as Ukrainian walnuts. However, their quality was much higher due to varietal uniformity: the nuts were industrially harvested, homogeneous, light-colored and ideal for shelling,» the expert explained.

He added that European consumers naturally switched to higher-quality products, making the Ukrainian price simply uncompetitive.

Andrii Lapa said that exporters tried to find ways to reduce the price, but procurement companies refused to sell walnuts at a lower price. At a certain point, exporters simply stopped buying from intermediaries because it was no longer profitable.

«Many exporters did not ship walnuts abroad — they were waiting for the price to fall. Now, in April, the price has simply collapsed,» the expert noted.

He added that intermediaries, in pursuit of profit, effectively «tripped up» Ukrainian exporters. As a result, due to the accumulation of product surpluses, they ultimately punished themselves as well.

«Some of them had 20 or 30 tonnes of walnuts in warehouses. They bought in-shell walnuts at UAH 30/kg, roughly speaking, hoping to wait until the price reached UAH 40–45–50/kg. At one point, it did indeed reach UAH 45/kg, but now they cannot sell it even at UAH 30/kg. The situation will now become somewhat clearer: the price has collapsed, exporters will start purchasing again and fulfilling their contractual obligations. Intermediaries are trying to sell at almost any price, because the walnuts are sitting in storage and deteriorating,»Andrii Lapa summarized.