Onion supply is looking plentiful at the moment. "It seems like there are too many onions in the marketplace because pricing has gone backward pretty quickly," says Jessica Peri of Peri & Sons Farms, adding that it's able to manage its supplies and in fact is oversold from where the company needs to be at this time of year.
How did supply become so ample? "With Mexico coming on board plus what was left in the Northwest, pricing blipped. Before this, it seemed like there was good supply but prices were stronger," says Peri, adding that Mexico is shipping all colors of onions. "Without that supply from Mexico, the U.S. supply would have kept that elevated price. Now everybody is trying to grab every order they can." She also adds that Peri & Sons has gotten a number of calls asking if it wanted to purchase product.
As for demand, it is fairly flat. While the company primarily works in retail, industry reports indicate that foodservice is seeing the same trends in demand for onions. "We thought if people weren't buying them at the store they were eating out but foodservice is seeing the same thing," says Peri.
2024 onion outlook
This all looks very different from last year at this time when Mexican onion supply had been affected by weather, leaving much of the Tampico onion supply in Mexico.
Looking ahead, what does this mean? "It could change as soon as Mexican supply lightens up a bit and we're transitioning to Texas supply. It could level out," says Peri. Texas production is just starting to get underway and in mid-April, the production out of California's Imperial Valley will also begin. (All of this is on top of whatever supply is left in the Northwest as well.) "The one thing that comes to mind is a lot of Texas shippers like to get started with Mexican onions so they have momentum going when they get into their Texas crop. However it just seems like Tampico has grown too much supply for what even the Texas shippers can handle," she says.
For more information:
Jessica Peri
Peri & Sons Farms
Tel: +1 (775) 463-4444
http://www.periandsons.com/