After two seasons with a flying start, a different wind is now blowing through onion country. Growers who still have to get rid of plant onions are having trouble finding a buyer. Sorters are also keeping the seed onions at bay. Growers and processors are having trouble finding each other.
In a rising market everyone can do business, but in a falling market the wheat is separated from the chaff. Planting onions are often a difficult market as soon as the seed onions come onto the market. There is still a market for good planting onions, but if there is anything wrong with it, soon only the industry remains. Buyers do not feel any rush to secure sufficient seed onions. The onions that were booked early in the season turned out to be too expensive in retrospect, and buyers apparently estimate the chance that prices will fall a bit further than that the market will take steps upwards.
You can always give it away
Growers with seed onions, in turn, have little interest in doing business below cost price before they have been properly harvested. They can always give them away, or else I will think of something to store them temporarily, is what they say. There is a danger in that, however, that a compelling supply of onions will remain hanging over the market for a long time. That is apart from the onions that cannot be stored for long because of their quality. There are probably more of them than average this season due to the wet growing season.
Exports are not bad at all for this time of year. The most recent export figures are somewhat distorted by a boat for Senegal, but several sorters indicate that they have nice work this week. The great diversity in destinations is striking. Central America, Israel, some Asia and Africa: buyers for Dutch onions are located all over the world. Ivory Coast is pulling hard for Dutch onions, but for the best part, one or two more of the bulk buyers should join. We miss Senegal, is a comment that is often made. When exactly Senegal will open its border to foreign onions is not yet known at the time of writing this article.
Poland takes action
What is downright positive is that Poland is doing quite well on the market. The Polish industry is almost taking on the role of a broom wagon for the onions with a story, as usual. Various sorters indicate that they also do the necessary big bag work for Polish buyers. Some think that they want to profit from the relatively low prices in the Netherlands, in order to save their own stock, while others see this as a sign that there is more going on with the onion harvest in Poland than we suspect.
It is not possible to stabilize the bale price this week either. DCA quotation Bale price of Onions takes another step back and runs from €16 to €22. Customers wait as long as possible to order, because the price can still drop and sorters make sharp cuts to get the order. That is the vicious circle we have been in for weeks now and cannot get out of. At such times, the large sorting capacity and the mutual competition that we have in the Netherlands as a result work against us.
Read here is the explanation from DCA Market Intelligence on the new quotations.