Shrimp Market Update

LP Foods @source: Vietnam Shrimp market highlights of week May 17-24

1/ BLACK TIGER TREND:

After months of stability, price has gone down this week.
For example, size 20pcs HOSO has reduced VND 5,000/ kg (about 25 cent/kg), from vnd 220,000 to vnd 215,000 per kg.

We are still in the season of big sizes extensive farming (from 20pcs up) so all Japan and EU retailers, especially France, should look into these sizes harvest chance to small size season (30pcs down) starting from June till Oct.

2/ VANNAMEI TREND:

USA buyers continues signing large quantity of big sizes in Vietnam, like CPTO 26/30-31/40, under the pressure of India’s origin getting more limited.
As Vietnam is entering peak harvest season market shows conflicting trends between big and small size raw materials trend.

Price of 40pcs raw material reduced VND 3,000/kg this week, while 50pcs and 60pcs reduced vnd 2,000 and vnd 1,000/ kg respectively.

On the contrary, about small sizes from 70pcs to 100pcs, price has gone up vnd 4,000-5,000/ kg. The smaller the size is, the more the price increase.

Reasons of this trend:

– Big suppliers in Vietnam prefer these big size orders since their workers can process faster, and factories can have bigger revenues.

– Eu markets (especially UK) and Japan market prefer small sizes, while workers do not want to peel small size, so factories have to pay them higher labour; cost, make the price continues going up due to limited quantity available even the raw material landing this week are mainly 60-80pcs.

– Farmers are more and more switching to a super intensive farming system, which can help the survival rate be higher (from 40-50% of traditional ponds to 70-80%): quantities harvested are higher while the sizes are bigger, from 50pcs HOSO to 20-30pcs.

The higher survival rate has contributed to the shortage of small sizes from 70pcs down: it is known that once the shrimp survive after 70pcs size they grow very fast.

– Farming costs for intensive farming are higher then traditional farming (usd 50,000/he VS usd 12,000/he of traditional pond) therefore farmers target size as big as possible to recover their investment.

3/ OUR FORECAST:

We believe the price of small size raw material from 70pcs/down will not go down further next month, while the big sizes will keep going down next month due to increasing landings.

Small size raw material cost is already at bottom while there is some space for big sizes to go down in next 2 weeks, unless India situation gets worse and more USA orders switch to VN.