Preparing for New Production Season, Remaining 2021

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With the favorable weather, the pineapple supply for 2021 is expected to be around 1.25 million tons, a slight increase from previous projection of 1.15 million tons. Of 1.25 million tons, 1.07 million tons will be processed this year (source Thai Food Processors Association).

At present, factories are in shutdown period, with handful of canneries have started production, while majority have planned to start up from middle of September.  The pineapple volume available for processing is expected to be around 0.30 million tons for the 4th quarter this year.

The increase rainfall in February – May this year will have good impact on the forcing of plants when fruits will be ready to be harvested during the year end.  On contrary, the decrease of rainfall during June – July allows farmers to prepare fields for new planting that will bear fruits in 2022.

At this time, SAICO still holds the forecast of supply for Year 2022 to be 1.4 million tons while 1.1 million tons for processing.  We will carry out survey in the last quarter again to assess the supply for 2022.

 We still have concerns over the following factors:

  - Availability of labor for both plantation and canneries among the spreading of Covid-19 as vaccines are not readily available for manufacturing sector,
  - Production cost for plantation, fertilizer and chemicals as relating to oil price, the high iron ore and oil prices would also have ripple impact on production costs for canneries, and
  - Logistics is increasingly more difficult as containers and space on ocean vessels are limited that pushes freight costs to historical high.

For SAICO and TPC, we will follow the market situations closely and maintain the production volume at 200 – 250 tons per day for each production site during the last quarter 2021. 

Sep 7, 2021