Each month, the USDA and World Agricultural Outlook Board publish production, supply, and demand estimates for a wide variety of commodities, including peanuts. The figures represent something similar to a country-by-country balance sheet for a commodity. The most recent edition for peanuts was released on April 10, 2025. For the purposes of this analysis, the US Domestic Consumption and its components are being examined. While there were no major changes versus the prior month in the release, it can be useful to monitor the evolution of the estimates throughout a commodities marketing year. For US peanuts, the marketing year runs from August-July. Estimates for the current crop (2024/25) began in May 2024.
Initial estimates pegged domestic consumption at a total of 2.205 million metric tons (mt). That number is composed of 1.453 million mt being used in food, 397k mt for crushing (creation of peanut oil and meal), and 355k mt going to feed waste (crushing process waste created and used for animal feed). While April estimates had total domestic consumption up to 2.355 million mt (+6.8% from initial estimate), the feed waste category is driving that increase, with a 68.7% rise from the marketing year’s initial estimate. Food use and crush were lower than the initial estimates by 3.4% and 11.3% respectively and are more explicative of current price dynamics.
Expana Benchmark Prices (EBP) for US peanuts cover peanuts that would go into the food use category. Since mid-2024, each of the four EBP has been in a general downtrend. For example, medium runner-type peanuts [Expana Code: PNU2] (customer access) have sunk from $0.69/lb in July 2024 to $0.57/lb in the most recent assessment on April 18, 2025. As prices have declined, market participants have reported to Expana that demand has been weak, with very little new trade being conducted for the current crop.
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Written by Nick Moss
