The onion market is all kinds of things, but certainly not boring this season. Fluctuations in exports, prices that jump sharply and speculators that occasionally stir things up. These are factors that always play a role in the market. This season it really reinforces each other, say insiders.
So far, all the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together well in the onion market. Growers - with decent onions and ditto yield - have the opportunity to make real money with onion cultivation. Several sorters who have not gone too much against the speculators on the market and have continued to do something are also not dissatisfied with the progress so far. Confidence in the market in the short term (until early January) among sorters is improving. The bale price has made a significant step and has returned to a level that suits the grower's diet. The demand for sorted onions has not suffered much from this. Buyers see what is happening on the grower's market and calculate that a further increase in the bale price is likely. What is too expensive now may turn out to be a bargain next week, according to several buyers.
Clean market
We have now lost the lead in exports compared to last season. That does not alter the fact that a lot of onions are already gone. Several sorters noted this week that 'exports should not be going too fast now because then we will soon have nothing left to do'. In that sense, the second half of the onion export season does not look bad. It should be noted that Eastern European buyers are currently hardly in the market for good onions in the Netherlands. Bad parties, for example, have interest from Polish buyers, but the price must be right, in other words cheap. This could also change if the local supply dries up.
The DCA quotation Bale price of Onions takes a big step up this week. The medium and coarse make the market and on average the bale price is already close to €50. The spread in the price of triplets is very large. Some exporters still have a somewhat low price based on previous agreements to sell them to Africa. Another part has almost run out of triplets and is finding it almost difficult to meet the demand and has therefore been able to raise the price considerably. At the supermarkets you see the opposite happening. At the current price it is not easy to make a real plus.