I’m satisfied that Nutella is the second most essential invention after the wheel. So sure, I’m an unapologetic hazelnut fan.
That stated, a number of months in the past I began to note one thing odd. The worth of pure hazelnuts had kind of doubled. Shortly after, they grew to become surprisingly onerous to search out, a minimum of in supermarkets the place they’d at all times been available.
That caught my consideration. And it made me wonder if one thing uncommon had occurred, or was nonetheless unfolding, within the hazelnut market.
Hazelnuts: a commodity shock with no market
Hazelnuts are a small commodity with an unusually concentrated provide chain. Round 70% of worldwide manufacturing comes from Turkey, with output overwhelmingly concentrated within the Black Sea area, the place soil, rainfall and local weather circumstances are uniquely effectively suited to hazelnut bushes. Few agricultural commodities show such geographic dependence.
That focus extends past geography into labour. Roughly 600,000 farmers develop hazelnuts in Turkey, totally on small, family-owned plots. Together with processing, logistics and commerce, an estimated 5 million individuals are instantly or not directly concerned within the hazelnut financial system. Manufacturing is fragmented, native and labour-intensive, a construction that shapes how the market features in occasions of stress.
An opaque market by design
Hazelnuts don’t commerce on any main agricultural trade. There are not any futures contracts, no central clearing, and no benchmark value. Transactions are negotiated instantly, usually verbally, between farmers, wholesalers and exporters. Costs are fairly actually “known as on the telephone”.
This makes the market largely inaccessible to non-commercial contributors and nearly invisible from a conventional commodity-market perspective. But bodily provide and demand nonetheless clear, and when provide is disrupted, costs can transfer violently.
A uncommon however extreme provide shock
In April 2025, hazelnut growers alongside Turkey’s Black Coastline woke as much as the worst doable shock: a late frost sweeping by way of the area. Frosts like this are uncommon, possibly as soon as a decade, however this one landed at precisely the improper second.
The spring had been unusually heat, pushing hazelnut bushes to bud and flower sooner than regular. When temperatures out of the blue dropped, the bushes had been utterly uncovered. The harm was fast and widespread. Early estimates recommend round one-third of Turkey’s hazelnut crop was worn out in a matter of days.
And the frost was solely a part of the story. Turkish growers had already been coping with mounting pressures. The brown marmorated stink bug, which arrived within the nation round 2017, has grow to be a persistent risk, able to destroying 10–20% of output in dangerous years. On high of that, the summer time of 2024 was the most well liked and driest in additional than 60 years, leaving bushes confused and fewer resilient going into the 2025 season.
By the point the frost hit, the crop had little margin for error, and the market has been paying the worth ever since.
Taken collectively, the result’s a extreme imbalance: out there provide in 2025 is prone to meet solely about half of worldwide demand.
How costs behave with no benchmark
Historical past supplies a information to what occurs subsequent. Following related frost occasions in 2004 and 2014, hazelnut costs greater than tripled. Within the 2014 episode, costs started rising instantly after the frost in March, peaked in late April to early Might 2015, after which fell by roughly 50% inside one to 2 months as demand adjusted and inventories had been launched.
Chart 1 illustrates this typical sample by utilizing a stylised value index. The spike is sharp, front-loaded and pushed by bodily shortage relatively than speculative positioning. The following correction displays demand rationing relatively than a restoration in provide.
An issue with the construction of the provision
When the worth of hazelnuts goes up, provide does not rush in to satisfy it. There isn’t any simple reply. It takes years for hazelnut bushes to develop up, you possibly can’t plant new orchards in a single day, and there aren’t many different nations that may develop them. Many of the manufacturing nonetheless comes from small, family-run farms that do not have a lot entry to capital and might’t develop even when costs are excessive.
Due to this rigidity, shocks within the hazelnut market are inclined to look terrible. The market does not make small adjustments; as an alternative, it swings out of the blue: costs go up, volumes go down, and consumers need to adapt on the fly.
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Chart 2 captures the core of the present drawback: demand stays broadly intact, however provide has been structurally impaired.
A market that issues, although it is onerous to see
Hazelnuts will not be on the earth of futures contracts and digital buying and selling screens, however they’re an essential a part of the worldwide meals provide chain. There may be regular demand for spreads, candies, biscuits, and baked items, and it is going to be onerous to search out one thing else to fill the hole within the quick time period.
Mix that demand with a extremely concentrated manufacturing base, rising local weather volatility and organic dangers, and the result’s a market that’s unusually fragile. When one thing goes improper, there are few buffers, and the adjustment is sudden, not easy.
The lesson from 2025 isn’t just about hazelnuts. It’s about how bodily commodities behave when there isn’t any buffer of inventories, no monetary market to soak up shocks, and no fast provide response. In such markets, shortage doesn’t emerge steadily; it arrives unexpectedly.
