Export area explained
Spain: major competitor for Dutch onions
Every week we look at an important country in the onion sector. This week: Spain. Importer of Dutch onions and a competitor on the international market. Does the dry growing season in Spain offer opportunities for Dutch exports?
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Choose the subscription that suits youSpain imports, produces and exports onions. Cultivation starts a few weeks earlier than in the Netherlands, because the weather is nice earlier in Spain. Spanish onions cannot be compared to our onions. Spanish onions are sweeter, softer, finer and have a white color. An important destination for Spanish onions is the Brazilian market, where they are looking for similar onions.
Major competitor
England, like Brazil, is also an important destination for Spain. These are also popular destinations for the Dutch onion. Spain is therefore an important competitor for the Netherlands in these areas. Morocco and surrounding European countries are also popular destinations for the Spanish onion.
In addition to exporting onions, Spain is a buyer of Dutch onions. In the 2016/2017 season, 8.470 tons of onions were exported to Spain. This put them in 27th place last season on the list of largest buyers of Dutch onions. This was a reasonable season, but not nearly as good as 2012 and 2015, when more than 20.000 tons of onions were exported to Spain.
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Exports to Spain have been quite volatile for years.
Coarse onions
The Netherlands mainly exports large onions to Spain. Because Spanish onions are especially fine, there is a demand for coarse Dutch onions. This demand increases when the large Spanish onions run out. This revival often starts around January/February. When Spanish importers place an order in the Netherlands, they mainly look at the size, where an undersize is often found. In addition, the price is of course also important.
Drought plays a role
This year Spain suffered a lot from drought during the growing season. As a result, there are few large onions. This offers opportunities for the Dutch market. Unfortunately, there are also problems with the coarseness in the Netherlands, which can be an obstacle. However, there is a large supply of onions in the Netherlands, which means that there are plenty of large onions left.
Spain has 46,5 million inhabitants and is 12 times the size of the Netherlands (505.992 km2).