The situation in the onion market is much different from what it was a few weeks ago, "Market conditions have been good, with limited supply coming in due to weather troubles. Demand has fallen and the majority of the crop has already been harvested. Nevertheless many growers still remember the 'old' relatively high prices, but these are in stark contrast to the current prices, so the situation needs to be re-evaluated," says seller Ewald Gouwenberg.
"Ships full of onions are still going weekly to Africa, but the hectic export to the continent has passed. South America (Brazil) is currently out of the picture, so we are partially focusing on Central America now. Asia is also joining in, many shipments have been sent that way and the poor exchange rate helps the case. Onions can finally be sent to Indonesia, a few weeks ago this was not possible. All in all demand is coming mainly from overseas. There is some demand coming from Eastern Europe as well; this demand is due to their interest in how the Dutch onion stands out, with particular interest in the size of the layers," says Ewald.
"The yields are definitely not bad. There has been considerable growth in recent weeks. Given the recent yield estimates, we definitely need export to run smoothly each week. This means that Holland should not price the onions too high in order to stay competitive. In terms of quality we also have to distinguish ourselves in the market," says Ewald.
"Last year we had relatively low prices but particularly good quality. This year seems to be different. The quality is still good, although the color of many onions is slightly off, but I expect the color to improve after the onions have some time to dry. The only question is: what will the quality be like after the onions come out of storage? Many of the onions could be damaged due to the heavy rains," says Ewald.
