Published 7:30 am Thursday, August 27, 2026
As Oregon hazelnut growers prepare for harvest, global buyers and sellers are locked in a stand-off over prices that’s “frozen the market.”
(Oregon Department of Agriculture/Contributed)
Market dynamics center around Turkey, world’s largest producer
Global buyers and sellers of hazelnuts are locked in a stand-off over prices that’s “frozen the market” as the Oregon harvest approaches, experts say.
“Everybody will have to see who blinks first,” said Terry Ross, executive director of the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association, which represents farmers in price negotiations.
As usual, the dynamics are centered on Turkey — the world’s foremost hazelnut producer — where the hazelnut industry has a powerful influence on the country’s politics, and vice versa.
Due to the importance of hazelnut growers as a voting bloc in Turkey, the government tries to keep prices high for the crop, said Larry George, who owns several companies that buy roughly two-thirds of Oregon’s hazelnuts.
Last year, the Turkish government was successful enough in keeping prices strong that it reduced that country’s sales, resulting in a “massive carry-in” in 2026, he said.
“They raised their price so high that they killed the biggest market, which is Europe,” he said.
Big 2026 crop
Now, Turkey appears to have a “big crop” coming in, as do other major producing regions, including Italy, Chile and Oregon, George said.
But the price for hazelnuts set by the Turkish government is largely unmoved from last year, and must be accepted by Ferrero, a major global buyer of hazelnuts, per a court settlement, he said.
However, the fact that the Turkish government and Ferrero are buying hazelnuts at a certain level doesn’t necessarily dictate the price that will eventually be determined by the global market, he said.
“The question is: What does everything else go for?” George said.
At this point, buyers are reluctant to purchase large volumes at high prices, while sellers don’t want to lower prices, which has immobilized the market, he said.
“I’ve not really seen a market like this in my career,” he said. “Everybody is talking volume, but nobody is talking price right now. Nobody knows how to get to price discovery.”
Though some buyers who need hazelnuts immediately are buying on a “hand to mouth” basis, they’re not entering into the type of longer-term contracts that typically consume most of the crop, George said.
For Oregon farmers, that’s likely to delay the establishment of a guaranteed initial hazelnut price, which is set by processors and the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association, he said.
Terry Ross, executive director of HGBA, said he concurs in George’s analysis of the situation, but says its too early to guess whether the current stasis will lead to good news or bad news for farmers.
“Everything is up in the air, currently,” Ross said.
Inevitably, though, product will need to move, since Turkish farmers are already harvesting hazelnuts and those in Oregon are preparing to do so as well, he said.
“Within the next month, the logjam will get blown up,” Ross said.
In terms of the initial guaranteed price, it’s unlikely a deal will be struck before mid-to-late September, George said.
The initial price will need to offer processors some “flexibility” to adjust to market conditions as they change toward the end of 2026 and early 2027, he said.
“I would say probably the later we go, the more accurate we will be,” he said.
Flexibility in the initial guaranteed price may mean starting at a lower level, leaving room for bonuses as the marketing season progresses — last year, the initial price started at about $1 per pound but ended up at about $2 per pound, George said.
“We achieved a higher price and we moved the whole volume, so it was a good market for us,” he said.
Oregon growers are typically able to obtain a premium above the global price for hazelnuts based on the low defects and high quality of the crop produced in the state, he said.
Maintaining the premium will require living up to that reputation, George said. “That’s what we’re preaching to our farmers, that quality is everything.”
