The group that remains active on the onion market is certainly not getting any bigger. The necessary growers have now gone wild and several sorters have thrown in the towel or are running the work stock and will stop in the short term. For the players that remain, it is an interesting time.
The demand from abroad for Dutch onions is certainly not increasing. Because quite a few sorters have secretly stopped, the demand from the group that remains is not disappointing at all. In fact, some are somewhat more critical in the orders they do or do not take. Partly because there is certainly no oversupply of onions, sorters are also somewhat frugal with the stock.
The onions are not yet gone. It is good to keep your eyes open according to insiders, but then you can still find; if not directly from the grower then via speculator or trader. The market is somewhat friendlier for buyers than it was a week or two ago. "People still ask €50, but for €40 you are now also a merchant", according to a sorter. Some buyers are still setting a bit lower because the bale price is still a few cents too low in relation to the grower's price, but you don't have the onions for that. And if you do have them for that, there is a big chance that there is a defect. Baldness and shooting often keep coming back.
Vulnerable
The transition is now also being made to the onions from mechanical cooling. Those onions look beautiful, but as soon as they come out of the cooling and it is warm outside, as was the case at the beginning of the week, you should not leave them for a week before they are processed and collected. An onion that comes from outdoor storage is somewhat less sensitive in that respect.
The DCA Bale Price Onions is rising again this week. This is mainly because the supply of inferior onions is drying up. Sorters who said: 'That is still possible if we are a bit sharp with the price', are now making quite a claim after being asked here and there. It simply has to be good for such prices, say customers, not entirely without reason. The room for growth is limited for the time being. The early Egyptian onions are not comparable in quality to old Dutch onions, but New Zealand onions are good. How many New Zealand onions exactly are coming to Europe is and remains unclear. Volumes could well be somewhat smaller because containers were filled with kiwis instead of onions at the last minute, according to various sources.
Read here is the explanation from DCA Market Intelligence on the new quotations.