The quinoa trade pages are an information service for professionals in the quinoa business, with unique market insights and market news from the sector.
Quinoa is called the golden grain not only due to its appearance but also due to its many positive properties. Quinoa has a strong adaptability to extreme climate and soil conditions. Further, its nutritional properties are outstanding since it is a rich source of proteins, phosphorus, calcium and iron and contains all important amino acids.
Quinoa production in Bolivia may fall 50% in 2017, according to research conducted at Mercadero. This means that production will drop from 69,000 tons in 2016 to 35,000 tons. Three main factors are pointing to a lower harvest. First, farmers have become demotivated by the continuing low prices they receive for their crop. Second, the … Read more
Few stories have dominated the public perception about a food item more persistently than the 2013 article in the Guardian titled: ‘Can Vegans Stomach the Unpalatable Truth about Quinoa.’ The Economist now takes on the claim that increasing demand by western ‘food fadsters’ is driving the population in Peru and Bolivia into poverty and undernourishment. … Read more
The article “The Global Expansion of Quinoa: Trends and Limits” published in Frontiers in Crop Science sketches the expansion of quinoa production, with a focus on the distribution of germ plasm. Based on a mini survey among experts, the authors Didier Bazile, Sven-Erik Jacobson and Alexis Verniau present interesting data on testing and breeding of … Read more
Annual quinoa imports into the European Union reached 20038 tons in February 2016, representing a growth rate of 29%. Growth thus continues to be strong, although lower than in the previous year, when it stood at 54%, and in the year before, when it was 68%. The analysis of monthly data shows that in February … Read more
After our post of December 2015 on European quinoa consumption, we received an email from Mr Jason Abbott of AbbottAgra specifying the contribution of quinoa produced in Europe to the figures of apparent consumption. Based on this, we revised our preliminary figure for apparent consumption for the Year Ending October 2015 to 20362 tons. Mr … Read more
With the year 2015 coming to a close, import figures show that the quinoa market is still growing rapidly. In the year ending October 2015, imports increased by 40% compared to the year before (Figure 1). This is exactly the same growth rate as recorded a year earlier, from 2013 to 2014. In the year … Read more
The CBI factsheet published in December 2015 gives a bird’s eye view of the European quinoa market and opportunities for exporters. Based on trade data until May 2015, the study suggests that import growth is flattening out and consumption and imports are spreading from early adopters to other European countries. The claim that consumption may … Read more
Quinoa was spotted in the reclaimed land of the Dutch Flevo Polder: another sign that quinoa is moving out of the original production zone of the Andes mountains. The Flevo Polder is a highly productive agricultural area with a mathematical lay-out, reclaimed from the sea in the 1950s and 1960s. Photos courtesy of Frank Tel … Read more
Recent developments have diminished the relevance of the Challapata market for the export prices of quinoa. At Mercadero we have therefore decided to discontinue the Challapata price service, following the suggestion of our informants. There are two main reasons for this: both quality and price of quinoa traded at Challapata are no longer representative for … Read more
Growth of EU quinoa imports from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador accelerated to 57% in January-May 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. In January- May 2014 imports grew at ‘only’ 32% compared to a year before. In 2014 as a whole the import volume from these three countries was 14,468 MT, which constituted an … Read more