MANTECA (CBS)—one of California's most valuable agricultural products, nuts, is not immune to the supply chain chaos affecting California ports and other areas.

At present, it takes more time and money to obtain containers and make reservations with shipping companies for commodities such as walnuts, pistachios and almonds than a few years ago.

“I paid US$2,200 for each container last season, and now you see that the price of each container is close to US$5,000 or US$6,000,” said Desiree Silva, vice president of business operations at California Valley Nut Company.

Silva said her factory can usually have 10 containers to load walnuts and ship them to the Port of Oakland. Now, she said, she was lucky to get one or two.

In the second week of November, two trucks of walnuts departed from the Yuba City headquarters of the California Grain Nut Company. However, the same product was originally scheduled to ship on October 21st. Silva explained that due to port congestion or lack of available containers, she had five delays for this particular shipment.

Andrew Hwang, Marine Business Development and International Marketing Manager at the Port of Oakland, said: "Due to the traffic congestion in Southern California, they chose to skip Oakland and return to Asia to save some time."

Hwang said that the Port of Oakland is adding new direct routes to Asia to ease some backups in other ports in California.

With regard to almonds in the tree nut industry, exports have not been as rapid as they should have been.

David Phippen of Travaille and Phippen, Inc. said: “We should pack every opportunity, because every lost opportunity will never come again.” This third-generation almond farming family business has expanded from growth to include Packaging and shipping costs are also.

He said that he used to worry about marketing issues, that is, whether there will be a market for this kind of product-unable to ship to people who want almonds, usually he doesn't think about anything. Last year was not typical. The supply chain disruption has caused Phippen's daily work to be disrupted.

Now, the warehouses that should allow products to pass through quickly contain almond boxes ready to be shipped. This can cause storage problems because it is not the most efficient use of space-so although warehouses seem full, they can hold more.

Fortunately, Phippen said, almonds can be stored stably for up to two years. This does not mean that he wants to keep the product for a while, but that he can-if it is not delivered this season, he will not lose money on the product.