Declining market creates new dynamics

After a smooth start to the first half of the season (rightly or not), the flag is now hanging differently. At the end of last week and beginning of this week, there were some panic sales among growers. The 'just make sure they go away and we'll see the price later' offer has also dried up as quickly as it came. It's a tough pill to swallow for growers. Up to a month or a month and a half, €50 was charged. Half, namely €25, is now being offered. The foot seems to be off the brake when it comes to prices, but the clutch remains depressed and the accelerator pedal is still a long way away. It remains a real buyers' market.

Doing business in a declining market always involves a completely different dynamic than in a rising market, to put it politely. To put it more bluntly: if it runs, there is rarely any fuss about quality and if it doesn't run, some people look for a reason for rejection. If you ask a sorter point-blank, it is 'the fellow colleagues who do that'. If you put everything together, almost every processor that takes positions participates in this to a greater or lesser extent. With onions that have been purchased in advance for €40 to €50 for delivery in March and a bale price that does not correspond at all, it is of course a matter of taking the guesswork out of it. Partly because serious amounts are involved, growers are very critical when there are doubts about the correctness of the taring.

What could still be there?
The other major theme on the onion market remains the moderate export compared to the stock. There is almost always noise between the CBS yield estimate and the KCB export figures. Partly due to growers who do business directly with a foreign buyer, which means that the onions are included in the figures of CBS but not in those of the KCB. Conversely, onions purchased by Dutch exporters in the border region outside the Netherlands are included in the KCB figures. Be that as it may, if we compare exports up to and including week 9 with the yield estimate, a quantity of onions still needs to be removed that is comparable to the 2015 and 2016 harvest years. 2016/2017 was a very extreme year, but the trend of We could also continue to monitor falling prices this season.

De DCA quotation Bale price of Onions is also taking a step back this week. It is mainly the smaller sizes that sorters peddle. There is no shortage of large sizes, especially supermarkets. Due to price pressure in the medium and triplets, coarse and supers are being pulled down.

Read here is the explanation from DCA Market Intelligence on the new quotations.