In his last update in August, Tjerk Nagel of Konaxx Onions mentioned that the onion market was looking for a tuning orchestra. "In the meantime, the orchestra has begun to play, but in my view, it's still not producing the right sound," he said.
"It's a season with its fair share of challenges," the Friesian onion packer continued. "Demand is pretty strong, but the main risk lies in quality. It's simply not good across the board. Fusarium and bacterial pressure are prevalent. That poses a significant risk and ultimately limits our sales opportunities. Many growers have quite a large volume of lower-quality onions, and that product will still need to find its way to market. While market prices are currently rising a bit, I personally think this gives a distorted view. There's a split between lower-quality lots and the nicer, white lots. Good onions are currently fetching around 16 cents at the farm level, but not all lots are worth that. The share of coarse, white lots may only make up about 20% of the total so that pricing is not representative of the entire market."
"I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but these are the variables we're dealing with at the moment. Right now, quite a few onions are being exported. Africa is leading the demand, though it's somewhat broader than that. At the same time, the Eastern Bloc shifts to Germany quite quickly if our prices rise. However, the main point of concern is what will happen after the New Year. We all know the stock figures. Some of that will definitely be written off as waste, but we also know that some Belgian, French, and German onions will end up as part of the Dutch harvest. In short, the tuning orchestra isn't quite hitting the right note yet."
For more information:
Tjerk Nagel
Konaxx Onions
Kadal 32
9079 KW Sint Jacobiparochie
Tel: +31 (0)518 49 12 55
[email protected]
www.konaxx.nl