Italian hazelnut growers have held back their crop this season and the market has started to get bullish, according to one importer. The Italian crop is smaller, both in size distribution and weight than last year. "Growers are offering 12 tonne parcels of inshell a time. Last year, I'd already got 120t of kernels into the UK by the first week of September." Turkish intervention agency Fiskobirlik opened the season buying heavily. The effect has been that prices have firmed by 15%, with promises that FKB will buy up to 160,000t of a 520,000t crop. {{PROVISIONS }}