Sweet onions meet the increasing demand for variety in the kitchen. But import isn’t easy. “A specialty really means that it isn’t sold a lot, but with sweet onions you need a critical turnover rate in all sizes. That’s why every container needs to be gone within a few days, it’s not a storage onion after all,” explains Bas Poeltuyn of Gourmet. The company from Grootebroek supplies sweet onions year-round from Spain, Peru, South Africa, Chile and Mexico, with Guatemala and the US as back-up countries.
Sweet onions have a crunchy, mild, sweet onion flavour. “Every onion has protective sulphur combinations, causing the sharpness. Sweet onion varieties are naturally low in sulphur, and are preferably cultivated on sand in an environment with many hours of sun. That way you create a flat onion with less skin that grows very fast,” Bas explains. “A disadvantage is that the onion is hardly protected against damage from outside, which makes it necessary to harvest by hand. The onion grows relatively fast, but the skin hardly gets the opportunity to set, making the sweet onion vulnerable.”
For this reason, production in Northwestern Europe is pretty much out of the question. “We did trials in the Netherlands and Denmark, but due to the lack of sun hours, ultimately it’s more of a prestige project. In Spain it’s possible to produce, but for sweet onions it’s best to be in a region with short days. Peru is important for us, because multiple harvests a year take place there. Demand for sweet onions is on the rise. Mediterranean countries are the biggest buyers. In Spain, for instance, the sweet onion is increasing in popularity. It used to be that the Grano onion was already mild in flavour, but it has become sharper under pressure of crossings to improve storability. For the Spanish, the sweet onion is how the Grano onion originally tasted.”
Growth potential industry
The sweet onions are a light to golden yellow on the outside, and white on the inside. Another advantage: the onion doesn’t cause teary eyes. There is also a red variety of the sweet onion, but Bas says it is mainly suitable for industry. “A small scar on a sweet red onion quickly turns white. That means the red sweet onion isn’t sold a lot at the fresh market. For industry, on the other hand, it’s a very interesting product, because the optical quality doesn’t matter as much. Industrially, the product still has a huge potential for growth anyway.”
The number of players in Europe on the sweet onion market is relatively stable, and that’s not expected to change. “You need to build quite a relationship with growers, in order to meet the demands of the European retailers. In the US, other demands are set regarding the onions. The volumes that are sent to Europe are relatively low. Many growers have a market relatively close to home with the US, which buys a lot of onions, mainly food service. For us, there’s certainly a need for harmonization of regulation, because if every country and then every supermarket sets their own requirements, some growers call it quits,” Bas says.
Not competing for price
All in all, Gourmet sees a lot of promise for the sweet onions. “You can’t compete for price with the yellow onions, because the difference in cost price is huge, while the attrition rate is significantly higher. On the other hand, the sweet onion meets the desire for more varied cooking, and the product still has a lot of growth potential in the restaurant business and industry. The taste experience makes the product widely usable, and let’s be honest, it’s still a relatively cheap meal component!”
