Agro Centre Holland sent out its final shipment of Dutch red onions to customers last week. Carl van de Wiel looks back on a successful season. "We started at reasonably low prices, and as the season progressed, prices increased. That created a healthy market sentiment, because an upward trend is always encouraging. When a season begins with prices that are too high, customers tend to back off, and once they're gone, it's hard to win them back. This time, customers remained loyal to us."
"We bought the red onions straight from the field at around 20 cents, and the final purchases from growers were at 60 cents. Selling prices were high enough that it worked out well," Carl notes with satisfaction. "In particular, we saw increased volumes of red onions going to countries like Germany, Poland, and Austria compared to last year. Last season, Germany hardly seemed to run out of onions, but this year, demand for Dutch onions started early."
From a quality standpoint, Carl is also satisfied with the season. "The onions weren't the prettiest, but they were healthy. We had a few issues with disease or bacterial pressure, such as fusarium or neck rot, so even after 30 days in transit, the onions arrived in good condition."
In the meantime, Agro Centre Holland has switched over to red onions from Egypt. "Prices are already starting to fall a bit. That shows there's been a massive volume of Egyptian red onions produced," Carl observes. The shallot season also went well. "The European harvest was slightly lower than in previous years, so we've seen a strong and stable price level."
The outlook for the new onion season is also positive so far. "Despite the reported seed shortage, red onion acreage in the Netherlands has still expanded by 7%. That increase should be manageable for the market, although it always remains to be seen how yields will turn out. Seed seems to have been sourced from every possible corner—both from first-year onion sets and from varieties typically used only in southern Europe. Hopefully, quality won't suffer as a result."
For more information:
Carl van de Wiel
Agro Centre Holland
Neerhofstraat 8
4761 BM Zevenbergen
Tel: +31 (0)168 371230
[email protected]
www.red-onion.com