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Central Illinois | When there is a couple cents worth of wheat in bread or corn in corn flakes, raw commodity prices don't mean much. However, my late daughter was Director of Marketing for Safeway Foods, and before that worked with Bryer's and Nestle Ice Cream Companies. Just like us, they hedged a lot of the components of their ingredients, especially on the ice cream end. Can you even buy futures for cocoa? As I recall, it is pretty thinly traded. I know they locked up a lot of production ahead of time.
Someone mentioned why are we (USDA) telling the world what our production/consumption numbers are? Well, the BIG BOYS have their scouts checking already, so they have a pretty good idea on numbers. How many scouts do you have out there? And even if they were to release the information to only "real" farmers, how long do yo think it would stay private, or would farmers even react to those numbers? My experience tells me that most of mull things over for a day or three before we make up our minds. | |
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Bean Market
