It does look increasingly likely that there could be a surge in...

It does look increasingly likely that there could be a surge in the almond price in the near future, with the supply side looking challenged in all the major almond growing regions:

* Recent reports suggest that the drought in Spain is set to continue into the new year;

* The 2018 Australian crop apparently won't be much larger than the rather lacklustre 2017 crop;

* California is key: will the crop in that state meet the 2.25 billion pound forecast?. My suspicion is that it could fall one or two percentage points short of the mark.

The almond harvest in California should have been completed by now, so we should be getting a better indication as to the actual size of the Californian almond crop in the not too distant future.