China Water Chestnut Shortage
3 04 2008Water chestnuts continue to be a major headache for importers this year. We have never seen pricing at this level in all our years dealing with China. Prices now have increased more than 30% over previous seasons.
What has happened? in addition to the rise in oil prices, labor cost, and the Chinese currency this year China was hit with one of the worst snow storms in its history. This natural disaster has had a major impact on agriculture products including pea pods, sugar snap peas and water chestnuts.
For water chestnuts the normal season is from ending November through March. Because the water chestnuts compete with pea pods, sugar snap peas and mushrooms during this same time period it is normal for the factories to produce the water chestnuts in November and early December and then again after Chinese New Years because they will produce the pea-pods, sugar snap peas and mushrooms between December and Chinese New Years. This year it didn’t work because of the snow storms damaging the crops. Consequently suppliers are facing sever shortages while prices are sky rocketing.
At present there is little inventory and quality of raw material is extremely poor. Based on this information, and with new crop 8 months away, it appears that pricing on water chestnuts has now were to go but up.
For those in pursuit of water chestnuts, now is the time to come to the plate.
Technorati Tags: Noon International, China, water chestnuts, pea pods, sugar snap peas
