Soybean Meal to Vietnam Accelerated in April: -41.7% to +138%

Brazil's soybean meal sales to Vietnam changed gear in April 2026. The month-over-month (MoM) pace, which compares one month with the one before it, went from -41.7% to +138%. The gap between the two readings is the acceleration: 179.8 percentage points of swing in a single month. This number measures the bend of the curve, not shipment size. With MDIC data, from Brazil's trade ministry, now published through August, we can see what came after the jump. This article keeps April as the hook and checks it against the four months that followed, using only the published monthly series for value, volume and price per kg.

When the curve bent

February closed at US$ 42.3 million. March fell to US$ 24.7 million, the -41.7% pace. April rose to US$ 58.8 million, the +138% over March, and it was the highest monthly value in the December 2025 to August 2026 series. Volume went from 70.3 thousand tonnes in March to 168.8 thousand in April. Price barely moved: US$ 0.351 per kg in March and US$ 0.348 per kg in April. So the jump came from quantity shipped, not from a better price. In other words, volume rose 140.1% in one month while price moved less than 1%. Part of it is low-base arithmetic, because March had fallen sharply. April alone accounted for 22.8% of all value exported from January to August 2026, which totaled US$ 257.8 million and 718.0 thousand tonnes.

What the following months showed

Values below are MDIC totals in US dollars, and volume is net weight. May gave back part of the gain: US$ 40.3 million (-31.4% against April), with 112.3 thousand tonnes at US$ 0.359 per kg. June was weaker, at US$ 26.2 million (-35.0%) and 66.6 thousand tonnes, although price rose to US$ 0.394 per kg. July rebounded +29.3%, to US$ 33.9 million and 87.4 thousand tonnes, at US$ 0.388 per kg. August fell again, -30.9%, to US$ 23.4 million and 62.5 thousand tonnes, at US$ 0.375 per kg.

The result: April remains the peak of the series, and August sits 60.1% below it and slightly under March. The pace did not become an uptrend. One hypothesis, not confirmed by the data, is that Vietnamese buyers purchase in lots, so one vessel more or less changes the month. Another hypothesis is the Brazilian soybean harvest, which tends to loosen meal supply around April. The data show the swings, but they do not prove either cause. As a whole, January to April added up to US$ 134.0 million (52.0% of the total) and May to August to US$ 123.8 million (48.0%). The average price for the period was US$ 0.359 per kg, in a narrow band between US$ 0.335 and US$ 0.394 per kg, so value followed volume.

What to watch from September

As we showed in Iran passes 12 rivals to become Brazil's No. 3 soybean meal buyer, Brazilian meal moves in markets that reorder quickly. A single month carried almost a quarter of the total, which shows how concentrated the flow is in a few large shipments. The soybean meal export dashboard carries the series by destination. The January to August 2026 total can be compared with the same period of 2025, and monthly volume shows whether the flow regains strength.

September will tell whether the slow pace of June and August continues or the flow returns to the level of the strong months.