The 2015 ports shutdown had a big impact on a lot of California crops, and that includes almonds.
Almond shipments continued to grow in 2015 but the ports shutdown really affected overseas exports. “What basically happened was that you lost consumption because if you don’t ship it, it’s not on the shelf and it doesn’t get consumed. Shipments were delayed and delayed and delayed and that meant that customers either just pushed purchases further out in the future or they just cancelled,” Almond Board of California CEO Richard Waycott said. “We definitely lost consumption in the export markets.”
The shutdown was unfortunate for many reasons, but Waycott says especially considering the growth the almond industry was seeing. “It’s quite interesting, if you look at the domestic market it continued to grow month after month after month. We had record shipments almost every month when there weren’t any shipping problems,” Waycott said. “Especially with shipping to Asia which was having several problems in other respects, the port slowdown just exacerbated those other problems.”