The price of hazelnuts is not a fixed number. It’s a synthesis that changes with the harvest year, actual availability, demand, and the type of product the market is “pulling” at that moment. An often underestimated point is that trends are not formed only on local exchanges: when the predominant part of international trade concerns shelled product, it’s inevitable that the market also reasons in function of who transforms and how they buy. Moreover, a component of instability is structural: the Hazelnut Sector Plan explicitly states that the price is mainly linked to Turkish supply and that climatic variability has a significant impact. In practice: asking “how much does it cost” without specifying what you really need almost always leads to hardly comparable answers. The most useful way to read a price, in B2B, is to shift the question from “how much does it cost per kg” to “how much does it cost me to obtain useful quality”. Three elements that are often confused come into play here:
- the price of the goods (the quotation itself),
- the waste you carry with you if the batch is not consistent with the use,
- the quality risk (sensitivity to defects, variability between bags, stability in storage). If you’re buying for transformation or for a line with stable standards, the real cost comes from the total of these three pieces, not from the number in the first line of the quote.
Price list examples: Tonda Gentile Romana (Viterbo province)
To give a concrete reference, the price lists of the Rieti-Viterbo Chamber of Commerce for Viterbo province include the item “dry shelled round gentle romana hazelnut” expressed in “p.yield”, with a minimum/maximum range. Here are three snapshots in different months, useful only as “indicators” of the trend, not as guaranteed prices:
- September 2021: minimum 7.20, maximum 8.30 (p.yield).
- September 2023: minimum 5.80, maximum 7.50 (p.yield).
- September 2025: minimum 10.80, maximum 14.20 (p.yield). What to do, concretely:
- if the range changes a lot between one season and another, avoid treating it as a “single” price list: use those values to set questions, not to close orders;
- if you want to compare offers, always ask that the quotation be accompanied by specifications consistent with your final use, otherwise you’re comparing different things with the same name.
How to make quotes comparable (without wasting time)
When you request a quotation, the goal is not to get a number, but to get comparable quotes. If you change even just one of these pieces of information, the answer can change and still be “correct” for whoever issues it. Always write explicitly:
- quantity and delivery window (date or week),
- destination and delivery terms (where the goods arrive and how),
- final use (sale as is, roasting, paste, praline, etc.),
- selection requirements that are non-negotiable for you (those that reduce risk and waste),
- request for batch description in practical terms (homogeneity, any evident defects, sensory notes if available). This approach doesn’t automatically “raise” or “lower” the price. It allows you to understand why two offers are different and, above all, to avoid the classic mistake: optimizing the unit price and discovering later that the batch doesn’t hold up for the use. Internal link suggestions (if useful in guide):
- Hazelnut storage in shell: humidity, odors and risk signs
- How to evaluate a batch of hazelnuts in shell: sensory checks, defects and right questions
- For hazelnuts high prices and inconsistent harvest: “Climate impacts 70%”