American Pistachio Growers just released its 2025 Annual Report and the timing couldn’t be more significant. Read alongside the ACP’s freshly released April 2026 shipment data and Meridian’s market brief, a clear picture emerges: the industry is navigating a historic transition point with real implications for grower returns.

Setting the Stage: A Record Crop, and What Comes Next

The 2025 crop delivered the largest U.S. pistachio harvest ever recorded, 1.593 billion pounds in total production. That milestone is well-documented in the APG Annual Report, and it’s been the backdrop for everything that’s happened in the market since harvest.

But the story the industry is living right now is less about where we’ve been and more about where we’re going, because 2026 is shaping up to look very different.

According to Meridian Growers’ latest market brief, the industry is anticipating a 35–40% reduction in total 2026 crop supply due to bloom stress and poor nut set observed across multiple growing regions. That’s a major swing, potentially cutting available supply by more than half a billion pounds compared to last year. At the same time, both Turkey and Iran, the two other major global pistachio producers, are expected to come in short: Turkey due to adverse weather events, Iran facing ongoing geopolitical and logistical disruptions affecting both production and export channels.

In other words, this isn’t just a U.S. supply story. It’s a global one. And American growers are positioned squarely in the middle of it.

The ACP Numbers: Demand Has Been Historically Strong

The Administrative Committee for Pistachios released its April 2026 shipment report on May 15, and the headline is that demand has held up remarkably well against a record inventory.

Year-to-date shipments through April 30, 2026 (2025/26 crop year):

• Domestic: 166 million lbs.
• Export: 657 million lbs.
• Total: 823 million lbs.

Compare that to the same point last crop year: total YTD shipments were 687 million lbs. That’s a 20% increase in pace year-over-year, a direct reflection of strong global demand working through the record supply.

Exports have been the primary engine. YTD export volume of 657 million lbs. is running well ahead of last year’s 527 million lbs. at the same point, a 25% jump. Key export markets driving that growth include:

• Vietnam — up dramatically from 35 million lbs. to over 116 million lbs. YTD, now one of the largest single-country destinations
• Europe overall — YTD exports to Europe are 243 million lbs. vs. 194 million lbs. last year, with Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and Georgia all showing strong year-over-year gains
• Middle East — surging to 127 million lbs. YTD vs. 71 million lbs. last year, with Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Morocco all posting significant increases
• South America — up from 2.8 million to 5.5 million lbs. YTD, still a small but fast-growing region

One notable market to watch: China is running significantly lower YTD at 17.8 million lbs. vs. 148 million lbs. a year ago, a reflection of the tariff disruptions that were front-of-mind throughout 2025. The APG Annual Report acknowledges that “tariff conversation was a key talking point for the industry most of last year,” though APG continued its China activations throughout.

Estimated marketable inventory as of April 30 stands at approximately 511.6 million lbs. Meridian characterizes that level as “adequate, though slightly tight” under normal conditions, and notes the industry is now actively shifting from marketing inventory to strategically allocating it as global buyers begin positioning for a much tighter supply environment ahead.

What This Means for Pricing

Meridian’s summary is direct on this point: under a 35–40% crop reduction scenario across all major producing origins, “pricing would be expected to move materially higher as the market adjusts to significantly reduced available supply.”

This is the context that makes everything in the APG Annual Report more relevant than it might otherwise seem.

The incoming APG Board Chair, Justin Wylie, devoted much of his message in the annual report to warning about the long-term risk of supply outpacing demand, citing examples from other California specialty crops where strong production was followed by sharp price declines. That risk is real in a normal on-year/off-year cycle. But what’s developing for 2026 is the opposite dynamic: a significant supply correction at a time when global demand has proven strong and consumer awareness of pistachios is arguably at an all-time high.

The investments APG has made in marketing, in opening and deepening export markets, and in building the nutritional reputation of pistachios are what allow the industry to capture the pricing upside that tighter supply should generate. The demand base doesn’t materialize on its own.

The APG Annual Report: Why This Year’s Work Matters

With that market context in mind, here’s a look at what APG accomplished in 2025 and why it sets the industry up well for the moment it’s entering.

Marketing Investment: Still the Core Argument

The APG report makes a frank comparison: large snack companies invest 9–15% of revenue in marketing. The pistachio industry invests 1–3% collectively and APG’s share funded by grower assessments is a fraction of farm-gate income (under 0.5%, per the outgoing board chair Rich Kreps).

Despite that gap, the results are measurable. APG ran a 2025 digital campaign that reached millions of consumers and directly drove over 63,000 new pistachio purchasers, people who hadn’t bought any brand of pistachios in two years. Because APG markets the commodity, not a single brand, those buyers spread across all processors’ products. That multiplier effect is what generic marketing delivers that individual brand spending can’t replicate.

As new orchards bear fruit and the industry cycles through crop years, that demand infrastructure becomes even more valuable. The 2026 supply tightening will reward growers now, but the next on-year will test whether demand has continued to grow to absorb it. That work happens now.

Legislative Wins with Dollar Values Attached

APG’s government relations team blocked three California bills in 2025 that carried real financial stakes:

• AB 1264 would have labeled pistachios as “ultraprocessed” foods, a designation that could have cost growers and processors between $19 million and $284 million in annual revenue from the healthy snack market alone.
• SB 295 would have restricted the pricing algorithms processors use to find optimal market prices — when prices miss the optimal level in either direction, Meridian-style analysis of the kind growers rely on becomes harder to act on, and margins suffer.

Combined, APG’s work on just those three bills is estimated to have protected between $59 million and $1.1 billion in grower and processor revenue. That’s not hypothetical, those bills moved through the legislature and had to be actively fought.

On the federal side, APG conducted a Washington, D.C. board fly-in with 19 Congressional and Senate meetings across all four pistachio-producing states, and met with USDA and the Foreign Agricultural Service on trade relationships and Market Access Program funding. With the current tariff environment actively reshaping export market dynamics, that kind of direct government engagement matters.

Mexico Snack Tax: Progress After Three Years

Three years of work to eliminate the Mexican Snack Tax on pistachios is nearing a milestone. A health study commissioned specifically to support removing pistachios from the snack tax list is now complete, with results described as “overwhelmingly positive.” APG is finalizing edits before publication. Once released, it’s expected to significantly strengthen advocacy through a cross-border coalition that now includes U.S. elected officials and members of the Mexican Congress and Senate.

Mexico YTD exports are running at 16 million lbs. vs. 10.2 million lbs. last year, a 56% increase — showing the market’s responsiveness when conditions improve. Removing the tax removes a structural barrier to further growth.

Sustainability: Real Tools for Cost Reduction

The sustainability program under Director Joe Coelho continues to focus on grower profitability as the foundation. Some 2025 highlights with direct implications for input costs:

• Smart LiDAR sprayer trials showed pesticide use reductions of 40–90% while maintaining or improving pest control — translating to fewer tank fills, less fuel, and reduced labor hours
• WeedSeeker® 2 see-and-spray systems reduced herbicide consumption by 30–80% through optical weed targeting
• APG secured a $1 million CDFA BIFS grant to build California’s first Regional Integrated Pest Management Network for Navel Orangeworm, with pilot regions in West Fresno County and Modesto launching in 2026
• APG facilitated compost application on 5,957 acres through the Healthy Soils Program Block Grant, delivering over 18,677 tons of compost
• A multi-year Soil Health Deep Dive launches in 2026 to test what inputs and practices actually move the needle on productivity and profitability in pistachio systems

For growers navigating SGMA water restrictions and rising input costs, these aren’t research projects in the abstract, they’re tools that can change what you spend per acre.

Nutrition Research: 13 Studies Active

APG funds ongoing research because health claims are the foundation of marketing differentiation. Five new studies were funded in 2025, bringing the total to 13 active. Research topics include brain health, sleep, exercise recovery, GLP-1 medications and weight management, gestational diabetes, and studies specific to the Mexican market in support of the snack tax advocacy.

The model is: fund the research, publish the findings, translate into targeted marketing campaigns by country and consumer segment. It’s how pistachios get positioned as a premium health food in markets that might otherwise treat them as a luxury snack item.

The Bottom Line for Growers

The current moment is unusual. Growers are sitting on the tail end of the largest crop in industry history, with demand running 20% above last year’s pace and looking toward a 2026 season where supply is expected to contract sharply at the same time global competitors face their own production challenges.

If Meridian’s read is right, pricing should move materially higher as the market adjusts. That’s good news for grower returns in the near term.

But the APG Annual Report’s deeper message is the one that holds regardless of what any single crop year does: demand doesn’t build itself. The markets that are absorbing this record crop, Europe, Vietnam, the Middle East, India, Mexico, were opened and developed over years of investment in marketing, nutrition research, government relations, and trade advocacy. The fact that the industry has somewhere to ship 657 million pounds of exports in eight months is not an accident.

The question the incoming board chair is posing to growers is straightforward: as production continues to grow with maturing orchards, are you investing enough to make sure the demand side grows with it?

Given the current market dynamics, it’s worth taking seriously.

View the Full Reports

Want to dig into the data yourself? Access the primary sources referenced in this article:

• APG 2025 Annual Report — View Full Report
• ACP April 2026 Shipment Report (May 15, 2026) — View Full Report