Surprise and disappointment for Flevo Onions

Remko Wilms, buyer of Waterman Onions and also pool manager of Flevo Onions, managed to win the pool last year. to describe: “From above, Rihanna appeared to be lying in the shed, but during delivery it turned out to be the Singer Without a Name.” By this he meant the disappointing quality. “For the 2016 harvest we once again booked and actually received Rihanna. The tare percentage over the entire pool period, from week 49 to the end of the season, is 7% on average.”

Sit out the sales season
The long storage pool achieves a result of €5,56 per 100 kilos excluding VAT. This includes Global Gap compensation of €0,25 per tonne, and excludes weighing costs of €0,03 per tonne. This brings the basic price to €5,557 per 100 kg. Last year the price was € 17,02 per 100 kilos. “At the pool meeting, growers were resigned to the result,” Wilms summarizes. “The attitude was positive and constructive. The pool has scored approximately 50 cents above the average stock exchange quotation, which represents a reasonable value. The short-term custody pool ends in week 48. When the long-term custody pool started in week 49, the stock exchange listing went into a free fall. At the low point of the market, in March, we halted sales. Unfortunately, April and May did not appear to have any revival in store either. A relatively large amount was sold at the start of the pool, but as a long-term storage pool you cannot afford to be sold out in May. There can always be an upturn. If you don't have any onions, you will certainly be blamed for this.”

Tare is trump
Just like with fellow pools, quality is also an asset at Flevo Onions. “Including soil and skins, the average is 7%,” says Wilms. “That is fantastic for this time of year. The quality has helped keep sales going. The difference in tare compared to last year is 5%. That may not seem like much, but it is clearly noticeable in the sorting capacity. You save personnel costs and can prepare products efficiently. We use the Flevo Haven in Lelystad as much as possible for logistics. Especially in the first half of the season, containers travel via this port on inland vessels to Vlissingen or Rotterdam. This saves a huge amount of road transport through the busiest part of the Netherlands. The environmental benefit is also great.”

European sales
Last year, Flevo Onions passed up the Brazilian boat because the quality did not meet the requirements. This year it was able to benefit from the incidental demand and sold some containers to Brazil. “The real buzz can be found in the first half of the sales season, when Africa is on the market. In the second half we will rely on European trade. That was mainly England last season. Because Poland could provide itself with plenty of onions, we had to look further for trade in Eastern Europe. Mainly in Bulgaria and Romania. You notice that a low price, combined with high quality, creates a market. English onion growers kept their doors closed, causing wholesalers to shop in the Netherlands. There is a particular demand for our large onions. This is how we achieved a sales record. I think that the net tonnes delivered are higher than everyone previously thought. Good quality onions came from all over the Netherlands. A few percentage points less tare means more net processable onions.”

hitch
Flevo Onions will not change the pool for the 2017 harvest. “We see some growers spreading more between the long and short pool. Often large companies that can distribute loads over the sales season,” says Wilms. “Onion growers are realistic and know that the market could also be the other way around this year. Almost all growers in the long storage pool are in Flevoland. A few in Groningen. In our opinion, the crops are in average to good condition across the board. This means that it now appears that we will be amply supplied with onions for the coming harvest. You need a hitch somewhere in the world to generate sales. It is currently impossible to say whether this will happen in the 2017/18 sales season.”