Currencies

The £ has seen very little movement in the past week despite the disappointment that March’s inflation figures failed to drop below 10% as had been anticipated but it did still show a small drop from 10.4% down to 10.1%, which is at least in the right direction!

Wheat

Wheat saw a slight recovery at the start of the week over concern that the extension to the grain corridor in May could be in jeopardy. Russia made it clear at the last negotiation, that any future extensions would be under the proviso that sanctions by the west on grain and fertiliser were lifted, which appear not likely to happen. We also saw this week Poland and Hungary attempt to stop imports of ‘cheap’ Ukrainian grain to their traditional export homes, citing that they needed to protect their domestic markets although this has since been reversed.

In terms of new crop fundamentals, the UK winter wheat crop is slowly starting to improve, and French soft wheat is currently at 94% good/excellent. There is concern around UK spring planting with the prolonged wet weather but there is still time to get crops in the ground yet.

Ultimately, the market is struggling to hold any rally with the glut of wheat still left from the 2022 harvest and as the next harvest is approaching fast. We still have the issue that futures stores will be looking to move material next month with no export programme which is likely to mean domestic farm prices will have to compete (push lower) with this to keep finding homes.

Soya

Soya prices are slowly coming off still, due to slow demand from China and Brazilian shipments weighing on prices. WASDE cut a further 6 MlnT from Argentinian figures this week down to 27 MlnT but the market feels like it has costed this in already. There was also news that China are planning on capping soya inclusion in animal feed to 13% from 2025.

Sunflower vessels are still struggling to make their way through Turkish controls so this is causing short term supply issues and price spikes which need to be considered if your strategy is to buy spot loads.

Organic

Organic prices appear to have found a level at the moment which is generating new crop trade and origins are likely to be Romania and Kazakhstan this coming season.

In terms of proteins, we have seen the first example of shippers no longer carrying strategic stock and the UK effectively has run out of organic sunflower awaiting new shipments. This is temporarily driving feed prices back higher and shows as we have said before, the benefit of contracting for a 6 month period to protect from these short term supply issues.

India soya suppliers are in the process of re registering for their organic status after the EU removed all bodies from their approved organic suppliers, which meant the UK followed suit. This is likely to be August/September before we know if any are successful which means it is more than likely soya supply will switch to Chinese certainly in the short term. This means lower quality protein which could bring in some other alternative protein sources into organic diets in order to be able to balance that.

And Finally…

What a waste of beer?

Miller, an American brewer has been selling its Miller High Life beer, with the slogan `The Champagne of Beers’ since 1906.

Whilst nobody would dispute that beer is the same as champagne, although many Brits would dispute that an American beer can possibly be the best.

The Comité Champagne, set up in 1941, is the trade body that represents the growers, producers and merchants of Champagne. It recently lodged a complaint that the use of the word `champagne’ in the slogan for a US beer, infringed Champagne’s copyright. Its complaint was upheld, and Belgian customers authorities were called upon to intercept the next shipment of `The Champagne of Beers’.

The special shipment of just 2532 cans was intercepted at the port of Antwerp, whilst it was en route to consumers in Germany.