We recently wrote about how market prices would be increasing, and we are now seeing this with prices for desiccated coconut up 33% since the beginning of October and coconut oil up a massive 47%.

The Philippines is just coming out of the third major typhoon in five weeks, there has been significant flooding, long term power outages and major wind damage and unfortunately losses of life.

The more destructive part of the typhoon season has now begun in South East Asia,

One of the ongoing challenges for Philippine coconut farming is the typhoons that pass through the Philippines each year. There is another weather phenomenon that looks likely to appear in 2020.

The Philippines has a population of 110 million people spread over 7,100 islands.

Sadly, there have been 4,639 COVID death as of 15th September and quarter of a million cases with over 200,000 recovered. (The Philippines has one of the lowest % cases and deaths worldwide for a large populous country). The sporadic nature of the reporting within the Philippines and the spread of people throughout the country make looking at trends difficult. However, trends do look like they are going up and not down.

The lockdown in the Philippines caused a massive decline in production volumes, looking at data from UCAP (United Coconut Associations of the Philippines Inc) this shows that export of coconut products dropped by 71.6% year-on-year for July 2020 in the Philippines.

The prices on coconut oil continue to rise, and they are currently at the same level as of August 2018 in the Rotterdam marketplace, then the prices where on the way down, now they are on the way back up.

There are reports of new lockdown regulations in parts of the Philippines including Manilla, starting from tomorrow 4th August, as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise and the government vows 'recalibrated' strategy vs COVID according to the CNN Philippines website.

Delays are reducing month on month with production continuing to improve in the Philippines, however, there are the same challenges still limiting overall production volumes, distancing measures in the factories, inconsistent staffing levels and varying supply levels, plus some shipping delays.

There is an article on the Daily Telegraph UK website about how coconut oil production threatens five times more species than palm oil. It quotes an article written on the conversation.comSo, we wanted to look at the evidence for and against this.

There is an article in the UK newspaper the Daily Mail on Friday 3rd July with the headline “Waitrose BANS sale of coconut products made from fruit harvested by ‘slave’ monkeys”, so we thought you would like some background and conformation about what the full story is.

Demand forecasting is basically out of the window. Manufacturers supplying the hospitality market have seen demand fall 50% or more and they are predicting levels will not return to normal for another 9 to 12 months.

We are now working on the earliest positions realistically available as being October.

So we recommend that you get your orders in now!

The quarantine status in parts of the Philippines has changed to a more relaxed general community quarantine. After 80 days of a stay at home policy for all but essential workers.

However, workers have struggled to commute to their offices, as public transportation was allowed to only partially resume after months of closure, with commuters endured long lines and extended waiting time to be able to get a ride.

The Philippines is "the most exposed country in the world to tropical storms" according to Time Magazine, with about 20 tropical storms a year making landfall, and of which ten are classed as Typhoons.

Not wholly unexpectedly, the lockdown in most parts of the Philippines has been extended to June, some measures have been updated, but overall the situation remains the same.

Like most of the world, Asia and the Philippines continue to battle COVID-19.

The edible oil market at the beginning of May 2020, like most markets, remains highly confused and volatile.

That is the questions of the moment and one that currently is so hard to answer.

The updates this week follow the same challenges for production as last week.

There are still issues around transport infrastructure within the Philippines at the moment and this is leading to a shortage of raw materials in factories across the country