The dynamics on the onion market remain special. 'It's actually impossible, but we're doing it anyway', was the motto last week. This week, buyers are somewhat more reserved. The caution that is now taking hold of the sorters, is of little interest to growers.
The provisional upper limit in the onion market is €20. Finding a buyer for that price was more successful last week and early this week than the last two days, it almost seems. This week, many sorting companies lost a day due to the Day of Prayer for Crops and Labor. That distorted a bit how busy it actually is in the export. Now that the orders for next week are being listed, some sorters are having a hard time.
Some smaller companies then choose to run less or not sort at all for a week if they do not have a working stock with some cheaper onions. In the slightly longer term there is a good chance that the bale price will increase somewhat, but now the competition is just a bit too big.
Supply and demand
The demand for sorted onions does not match completely or not at all with what most sorters can offer. Nice coarse onions and supers are in good demand. They also have a hefty price tag. The finer sizes, and especially the triplets, are hard to get rid of, so to speak. What is made on average in the bale does not match in most cases what has to be paid for direct delivery of the onions to the grower.
The range in the DCA Bale Price Onions is very wide. The bottom of the triplets is at €14 while at the top of the supers €30 is made. There is some puzzling to get the optimal distribution from a batch, but due to the poor demand for everything under 60 millimeters, the average bale price often remains low in the €20s, even in a coarse batch.
Read here is the explanation from DCA Market Intelligence on the new quotations.