Report September 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The seasonal jute crop has been harvested, and we can now evaluate the quantity and quality of this year\u2019s fibre. There is some good news and unfortunately, some bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up to three tropical cyclones have hit the jute growing areas each season over the past decade. However, none were reported either last year nor this, nor lesser severe cyclonic storms as the climactic effects of La Ni\u00f1a appear to have shifted. This remembering Super Cyclonic Storm Amphan in May 2020 that killed 3,500 in the region and devastated that season\u2019s jute crop, or the nearly 139,000 who lost their lives in the fourth-deadliest tropical cyclone on record 35 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After harvesting commenced, early market feedback suggests fibre quality is likely to vary. Following a superb 2025 season crop with demand significantly outstripping supply, high raw jute prices saw many farmers increase growing hectarage this year. But then early seeding water-logging, followed by a dry spell, and then July flash floods in certain areas have compromised fibre and affected year\u2013on\u2013year colour variation. This had a direct impact on harvesting, with farmers forced to bring forward cropping in an attempt to salvage before further inundation, affecting both thinner harvest yield and shorter fibre maturity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To mitigate, we entered a regime of overstocking high quality 2025 season 100% D1 Tossa fibre at the yarn mill in the event of any natural disaster\/s this season to carry us over until next. So, we are proud to announce our current 2026 production run using superb quality 2025 stock, meaning quality and colour of our SHIZEN product will remain identical until at least this time next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While raw Tossa jute fibre had increased ~27% in price since same time last year, the biggest impact has been production overheads directly affected by the Iran conflict on oil price and availability in a region heavily reliant on supply. There now appears to be a stand\u2013off with buyers not wishing to pay high prices, offering up to $400 less per tonne, with many farmers refusing to sell, adding confusion to the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sea freight availability due to many operators hesitant to sail to United States ports because of trade uncertainties, even with oil prices rising have remained roughly equal. But manufacturers in the region are facing a ~30% increase in operational costs. Factories are struggling with, especially low gas and diesel stocks and face constant power outages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While our current production run is costing us more to produce compared to last year, we aim to hold our list sales prices until 1st January 2027. But as predicted in earlier blogs, we\u2019re now seeing the wave effect of jute price rises throughout the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, as the new European Union regulation came into effect during the past month (EU 2025\/40 EN PPWR EUR-Lex) regarding packaging and packaging waste, as we are an ethical business using zero plastics, our product and packaging already fully complied, and so it was fairly simple for us to get a Declaration of Conformity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Report September 2026 The seasonal jute crop has been harvested, and we can now evaluate the quantity and quality of this year\u2019s fibre. There is some good news and unfortunately, some bad. Up to three tropical cyclones have hit the jute growing areas each season over the past decade. However, none were reported either last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7536","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koumanawa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koumanawa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koumanawa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koumanawa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koumanawa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/koumanawa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7540,"href":"https:\/\/koumanawa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7536\/revisions\/7540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koumanawa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}