The Spanish onion sector is still waiting for the supply to become more balanced, although this situation is having an uneven impact on the sector. "This year, it seems that there is slightly more production in Spain. As a result of the good prices that onions have been fetching so far, the acreage appears to have expanded and there is more supply on the market. This is reflected in the prices, which are not the best when it comes to sales, although we in particular are experiencing high demand and, in fact, we are unable to fulfill every order," says Guillermo Agorreta, from SAT Agorreta.
"As far as freely-grown, open ground onions are concerned, right now there isn't a great demand and prices amount to around 10 cents per kilo. One of the reasons for these prices is that, in view of the high onion prices of recent years, we packers have generally made sure to procure a larger volume of our own production or via contracts," says Guillermo. "Right now, almost all the onions that can be bought at source at these prices come from sporadic growers who have started producing them without any certainty of selling," he says.
"At the same time, we see that the industry is not absorbing this oversupply and everything points to the fact that, like the packers, the industry had already secured its supply of raw material, in view of the high prices of domestic onions in previous years," says Guillermo.
"The frozen industry doesn't have any additional work capacity either. They work with many kinds of vegetables and they can't absorb everything, which adds to the fact that they have contracted quite a lot of their supply from China," he says.
"Because of all these factors, despite the fact that onions are very cheap, industrial freezers are not buying as much produce as would be expected this year. Nonetheless, the current low prices at source don't mean that there is no demand in the market for the finished product, because the opposite is true, as we are seeing in Agorreta."
"Our production area in the north of Spain, which has cold and windy weather, allows us to obtain a very high quality product, and Navarre onions are becoming increasingly appreciated by our clients in European markets, as well as by other non-EU countries," says Guillermo.
"At SAT, our lines have been significantly modernized with the installation of a new sorting machine with optical vision, which guarantees that our clients will receive a product that isn't just a high quality onion, but a perfect onion. In addition to implementing this new technology to ensure the delivery of a quality product, we have also doubled our packaging and sorting capacity, as the demand from Europe is so high," he says.
For more information:
SAT Agorreta
Sol 14
31512 Fontellas, Navarre, Spain
Tel.: +34 948 827 972
[email protected]
https://agorreta.es