The global pecan market has been in a bit of turmoil over the last few months with pecan prices dipping to 3 year lows in multiple pecan products. The shelled pecan meat prices have fared better than the in-shell pecan market over the past months but that too is now dropping more dramatically. Most noticeably in the pieces market. Pecan pieces prices have seen a drastic fall in price due in large part to a glutton of supply flooding the market, much of which is coming out of Mexico. But don’t be too quick to blame Mexico for flooding the market. Much of the product is actually belongs to US pecan shellers, being sent to Mexico to be shelled at lower cost than at home. We joke in the headline about not chopping or breaking pecan halves, only because at this point you will have cost yourself close to a dollar per pound, and for food companies and ingredient buyers that can add up to many thousands of dollars of pecan savings.

Demand for pecans remains strong and pecan halves are likely to be in short supply in 2019. Coming into the 2018 US pecan harvest season, shelled pecans had already been overcommitted by several million pounds; and that was coming off a very good previous global pecan crop. The 2019 pecan market will have far fewer pecan available to the consumer due to natural disasters in some of the largest pecan producing regions of the world, such as Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma.