Hazelnuts 2026: Turkish Oversupply Softens Prices as EU Aflatoxin Checks Raise Origin Risks

Hazelnut Market Report: Turkey's Bumper Crop & the Origin Diversification Map

Heads up: all numbers below are USD, metric tons, in-shell basis unless I flag otherwise. Data as of 2026-06-18 — full sourcing in the Source Notes at the end.

🎯 The 30-second version

Turkey is looking at a massive 800K+ MT crop, but origin diversification remains the real story for buyers this season.

If you're planning Q3+ coverage or shipping to the EU, this issue matters. Relying purely on Turkey exposes you to local inflation and pest risks, but blindly switching origins isn't a silver bullet. The U.S. has posted a record Oregon harvest, but Chile is battling weather uncertainty, Spain is structurally losing acreage, and Caucasus nuts are facing brutal EU border scrutiny for aflatoxins. Three minutes will save you a bad procurement call.

▲ TR 2026 CROP ~810K MT INC preliminary estimate HEAVY SUPPLY LOOSENS MARKET.	▲ US OREGON HARVEST ~110K MT Record 2025/26 yield VIABLE SPEC ALTERNATIVE.
EU BORDER CHECKS 20% Physical test frequency (AZ/GE) HIGH REJECTION RISK LOOMS.	▲ TR INFLATION 32.6% Annual rate (May 2026) SQUEEZES EXPORTER MARGINS.

📋 What's actually happening

The hazelnut market is currently dominated by a massive incoming Black Sea crop. Per INC's preliminary May read, the 2026/27 global production is pencilled at a heavy 1.43 million MT. Turkey alone accounts for the lion's share of this growth. We are seeing weak short-term demand combined with an expectation of comfortable supply, creating sustained downward price pressure across the market.

Market evidence on Turkish pricing baselines is visibly split right now. Sources disagree on the true clearing level: official state TMO intervention levels were set high to protect growers, but free-market indications plummeted significantly lower on weak export demand. Meanwhile, major industrial buyers are bidding somewhere in the middle, enforcing strict quality premiums. TMO has further complicated matters by bypassing contract processors entirely, selling roasted stock direct to domestic retail channels. The available evidence confirms the massive pricing gap but doesn't resolve a single market floor. Watch the actual export offers, not the local political announcements.

What the INC Macau roundtable is telling us is that Turkish exports have fallen significantly year-over-year. Buyers are holding off or looking elsewhere. Largest buyers are generally covered for the coming months, leaving the spot market quiet until the summer rush.

Put it together: an oversupplied Turkish market is keeping prices soft, but quality segregation and inflation mean cheap nuts might still carry heavy execution risks. That matters most if you need strict EU compliance or industrial-grade kernel consistency.

BUYER DECISION (OUR READ) Cover / tighten checks if: you need clean EU aflatoxin paperwork, organic specs, or specific industrial calibration. Wait / widen origins if: you have flexible grade requirements and can pivot between Turkish Levant and secondary origins. Main risk: assuming low Turkish free-market prices equal cheap landed costs—quality rejections and inflation-driven exporter defaults remain real threats.

🌍 The global supply picture

The carryover heading into the new season is healthy, but the quality of those stocks is questionable. Industry qualitative data shows that while there's plenty of volume, a significant portion of the carryover consists of inferior quality lots.

Here is how the 2026/27 global balance is shaping up (in-shell basis):

• Turkey: Surging to ~810,000 MT (from ~518,000 MT last year). Black Sea flower counts support this heavy outlook.
• USA: Holding strong at ~123,000 MT following a massive acreage maturity cycle.
• Chile: Projected around 115,000 to 123,000 MT. Weather issues, including April flooding, mean the final tally might fall short of early bumper expectations.
• Italy & Spain: Southern Europe is struggling. Italy faces uneven precipitation, while Catalonia's productive cropland has shrunk nearly 30% over three years due to severe drought.

💡 WHAT IT MEANS The headline supply is undeniably massive, but the usable industrial-grade supply is tighter. The mechanism here is simple: heavy crops often yield a higher percentage of smaller or defective kernels, meaning buyers needing premium 13-15 mm A-class nuts won't necessarily see the extreme discounts hitting the broader market.

🛡️ Quality stuff (yes, EU buyers — read this)

For buyers shipping to Europe, quality isn't just a spec sheet issue—it's border survival. The EU enforces strict regulatory limits, capping Aflatoxin B1 at 5.0 µg/kg and Total Aflatoxins at 10.0 µg/kg for direct consumption. We are currently seeing serious Rapid Alert System (RASFF) rejections, including a Turkish consignment hitting 45.7 µg/kg and an Azerbaijani lot catching 16.0 µg/kg.

Because of persistent contamination risks, the EU maintains a temporary 20% border identity and physical check frequency for hazelnuts out of Georgia and Azerbaijan. This causes massive logistical friction, pushing some buyers to seek pre-cleared stocks or pivot back to safer Turkish or US lots.

⚠️ COMPLIANCE ALERT Beyond aflatoxins, the EU is also actively enforcing an indicative threshold of 100 μg/kg for Tenuazonic Acid (TeA), an Alternaria toxin. We've already seen RASFF alerts triggered on hazelnut spread for this exact compound. Additionally, watch out for heavy metal limits: the nickel cap sits at 3.5 mg/kg, though there is active industry lobbying to raise it slightly to accommodate organic batches.

Practical takeaway: If you are buying from the Caucasus or secondary Turkish suppliers, demand robust, recent, lot-specific drying records and independent aflatoxin pre-shipment tests. A cheap FOB price evaporates entirely if the container sits in a Spanish or Italian port pending destruction.

🌐 Where the nuts are coming from

🇹🇷 TURKEY Crop Estimate: ~810,000 MT Export Trend: Volume down, value steady Driver: Bumper crop dragging down broader market pricing.

🇺🇸 USA (OREGON) Harvest Yield: ~110,000 MT Market Value: Up 109% YoY Driver: Maturing acreage finally delivering scalable global volume.

🇬🇪 GEORGIA Export Value: Up 63.5% (Jan-Apr) Compliance Risk: 20% EU border checks Driver: Growing alternative constrained by strict quality audits.

Turkey sets the price, but the U.S. is increasingly setting the standard for reliable, high-volume alternative supply. Oregon's massive harvest jump is a structural shift, not a one-off weather fluke, giving buyers a genuine secondary anchor.

Meanwhile, the Caucasus is a mixed bag. Georgian and Azerbaijani export values are climbing, and international players are actively investing there—like Ferrero's subsidiary training over 100 local growers on pest and mold control. But until those structural quality improvements reflect consistently at the EU border, these origins remain best suited for buyers with high risk-tolerance or non-EU destinations.

💧 Other stuff worth knowing

• Pest Pressure: In Turkey, the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is a critical biosecurity risk for the 2026 crop. The government just released over 400,000 Samurai Wasps in Ordu and Düzce to naturally mitigate the damage.
• Defect Limits: TMO is maintaining strict physical receipt criteria to block pest-damaged lots, enforcing a maximum 7% limit on rotten or defective kernels.
• Subsidies: The Turkish government bumped hazelnut production to Category 3 in its support scheme, increasing area-based subsidies to help growers offset 32%+ inflation.
• 🇪🇺 Regulatory Raids: The European Commission executed "dawn raids" on major industrial buyer premises earlier this year, investigating potential territorial supply constraints and cross-border trade restrictions within the EU.
• 🇪🇺 Food Safety Tracing: A severe Salmonella outbreak in Germany sickened 40 individuals recently, tracing back epidemiologically to contaminated commercial chocolate-hazelnut spreads. Retailer audits will be unforgiving this year.

📋 Buyer takeaways

The supply pipeline is full, but executing clean, compliant shipments will require tight vendor management. Here is how to play the current setup:

✅ Map your secondary origins now — Oregon is viable; Chile needs a weather check. ✅ Do not buy blind on price — heavy Turkish carryovers hold older, lower-grade stock. ✅ Enforce strict aflatoxin testing — especially if pulling from Georgia or Azerbaijan. ✅ Check your supplier's margin health — Turkish inflation is eating exporter capital. ✅ Verify heavy metal specs — ensure your lots pass the strict 3.5 mg/kg nickel cap.

The practical move is to lock in your high-spec, clean-paperwork requirements early rather than waiting for the absolute bottom of the market. The FOB price might drop another fraction, but a single EU border rejection will cost you ten times the savings.

💬 Want to go deeper? If this is relevant for your buying plan, reply and I can send a short shortlist of suitable origin options. → Reply to this email

Talk soon,

Constantinos Cardassilaris Cardassilaris Family · International food brokers since 1862

Customs classification — confirm with your customs broker:

• Raw in-shell hazelnuts: HS 080221
• Shelled / processed kernels: HS 080222

🔗 Source Notes

Every figure above, with its exact date and link, consolidated here for compliance.

Market & demand

1. HAZELNUT - QUALITATIVE — downward price pressure, weak demand, carryover quality concerns — as of 2026-06-18 — Tier 0 / Cardassilaris insider intelligence, no public link
2. 61saat.com — free-market price collapse and weak export demand — as of 2026-06-17 — https://61saat.com/findik-ureticisinin-kabusu-gercek-oldu
3. Mundus Agri — industrial portal purchasing round volume and price premiums — as of 2026-06-08 — https://www.mundus-agri.eu/news/hazelnuts-market-turn.n37353.html
4. Bloomberg HT — TMO direct sales of roasted kernels to retail — as of 2026-03-02 — https://www.bloomberght.com/tmo-dan-findiga-iliskin-manipulasyon-aciklamasi-3770639
5. Tarim Orman — official TMO intervention limits and defect caps — as of 2025-08-05 — https://www.tarimorman.gov.tr/Haber/6697/2025-2026-Sezonu-Kabuklu-Findik-Alim-Fiyatlari-Belirlendi
6. Trend.az — Turkey's annual consumer inflation rate — as of 2026-06-07 — https://www.trend.az/business/4195275.html

Origin & availability 7. INC Congress May 2026 — 2026/27 global production and balance sheet — as of 2026-05-22 — Tier 0 / Cardassilaris insider intelligence, no public link 8. HAZELNUT - INC MACAO 2026 ROUNDTABLE (referenced) + MARKET COMMENTARY — Black Sea flower counts, Chilean weather concerns, Turkish export drop — as of 2026-06-18 — Tier 0 / Cardassilaris insider intelligence, no public link 9. Capital Press — US Oregon record hazelnut harvest value and volume — as of 2026-05-07 — https://capitalpress.com/2026/05/07/record-oregon-hazelnut-california-pistachio-crops-boost-u-s-tree-nuts/ 10. Geostat — Georgian export value growth — as of 2026-05-19 — https://www.geostat.ge/media/78878/The-domestic-exports-in-January-April-2026.pdf 11. Customs Azerbaijan — Azerbaijan export volumes and values — as of 2026-05-31 — https://customs.gov.az 12. Govern.cat — Catalonia cropland contraction — as of 2026-03-10 — https://govern.cat 13. Hurriyet Daily News — Turkey Jan-May export volume — as of 2026-06-09 — https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkiyes-hazelnut-exports-reach-1-2-billion-in-five-months-223077 14. Ordu Governorate — Samurai wasp releases for BMSB mitigation — as of 2026-06-18 — 15. FAO — Georgian farmer capacity building — as of 2026-03-25 — https://www.fao.org/georgia/news/

Tariff & customs classification — for your broker 16. EU Commission — Regulation 2026/1206 setting 20% border frequency for AZ/GE — as of 2026-06-10 — http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2026/1206/oj 17. USDA — EU aflatoxin limits (Regulation 2023/915) — as of 2026-03-25 — https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Dried%20Fruit%20and%20Nuts%20Product%20Brief_Berlin_Germany_GM2026-0005.pdf 18. EU RASFF — Aflatoxin rejection alerts for Turkey and Azerbaijan — as of 2026-01-29 — https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/screen/notification/2026.0719 19. EU RASFF — Tenuazonic Acid (TeA) indicative limits and alerts — as of 2026-04-28 — https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/screen/notification/839990 20. EU Publications — Nickel heavy metal limits — as of 2024-07-30 — http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/29e5fc9c-4eda-11ef-acbc-01aa75ed71a1.0006.01/DOC_1 21. EU RASFF — Salmonella outbreak linked to hazelnut spread — as of 2026-04-15 — https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/screen/notification/2026.3214

This report is for informational purposes only and does not constitute trading, investment or procurement advice. Market conditions change rapidly and figures may be revised. Cardassilaris Family P.C. — international food brokers since 1862.