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US Inventories on December 1, 2024 (comment)

20/01/2025

François-Xavier Branthôme
CLFP
California,
North America
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This first stock situation for the 2024/2025 marketing year follows that of June 2024, which highlighted a significant increase and a sizeable surplus in tomato product inventories in the United States.

In order to maintain the balance between volumes produced and quantities in stock that is essential to the smooth operation of the US tomato processing industry (see also related articles below), operators significantly reduced the quantities processed during the 2024 season; with a processed volume of 10.48 million tonnes, down 13% on the 2023 season, and apparent monthly consumption from June to December up by almost 3% to 1.04 million tonnes (fresh tomato equivalent), the US industry has clearly embarked on a process of stock reduction. The quantities physically present in US warehouses on December 1 stood at 9.3 million tonnes (raw material equivalent): the spectacular rise in stock levels recorded in June 2024 has been contained, and the annual variation brought down to around +7% in December 2024.
 

While apparent consumption rose slightly over the last six months of 2024, it lost some ground compared with the twelve-month apparent consumption recorded on December 1, 2023; the annual absorption rate thus fell from 10.043 to 9.857 million tonnes or, in monthly terms, from 837,000 t to 821,000 t, a decline of 1.8%; this is practically the lowest level observed in the last seventeen years (apart from June 2024 (807,000 t), since we have to go back to December 2007 to find such a low apparent annual consumption rate (819,000 t).
 
If they were to remain unchanged over the next six months, seasonal consumption patterns would enable to reduce the stock levels recorded at the beginning of December by a little over 5 million t, leading to a stock situation on June 1 of close to 4.2 million t, a volume slightly in excess but likely to cover US requirements for a little over four months: at the end of the trading year, US operators consider this duration to be satisfactory, in line with maintaining the balance between production and requirements. 
 
With just a few days to go before the US Department of Agriculture publishes its first processing intention figures for 2025 (at the end of January), it is interesting to note that the current trajectory places apparent annual US consumption in a range between 11.3 and 11.4 million tonnes (metric).

Some complementary data
Growth in quantities processed by the US industry (California and other processing states).

Seasonal trends in apparent consumption of tomato products.
Evolution and composition of annual sales (December-December). The year brought virtually no change in total sales volume (domestic and export); data provided by CLFP seem to indicate an increase in sales of paste for reprocessing and a decline in sales of products “other” than paste.
Source: CLFP

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