Lentil price boom goes bust as crops recoup from Canada to India

Winnipeg/Chicago: So much for the lentil shortage. “In rare circumstances, you’ll get defaults where they just simply won’t take the goods.” Cheaper beans Expanding supplies may cut costs for food makers including General Mills Inc. that have been adding protein-rich legumes to breakfast cereals, energy bars and salty snacks. Top-quality laird lentils tumbled 34% to 52.85 Canadian cents a pound in Saskatchewan as of 19 October, down from 80 cents in April, according to Brian Clancey, president and senior market analyst at Vancouver-based Stat Communications Ltd. A wholesale price index for pulses in India fell 5.4% last month, the most in six years, after touching a record high in July, according to the Press Information Bureau of India. “All the information we’re getting from customers is that they’ll uphold their contracts,” said Flaten, whose company sells to countries including India and Sri Lanka. Strong demand “The prices went up so high because we had very tight stocks with extremely strong Indian demand,” said Murad Al-Katib, chief executive officer of Saskatchewan-based AGT Food and Ingredients, the world’s largest exporter of peas and other pulses.