"Asian destinations drop out because of high price per bale for the time being"

Buyers of Dutch onions are unhappy with the high price per bale at the moment. "I am glad that there were large orders in the direction of Africa during the last few weeks, but from experience we know that follow-up orders don't always do as well. The Netherlands in this way prices itself out of the market at the moment," Jac. Oomen of sorting and packing station Oomen Agro says.

"All eyes were strongly directed towards Asia, but that is a large disappointment at the moment. Last year we were lucky that the Chinese onions were expensive., but that is not so this season with the result that there is a considerable price difference in respect of the Dutch onions and that is very noticeable with destinations such as Thailand and the Philippines," Jac says. He is also sorry that no agreement was reached between the Netherlands and the government of Indonesia in order to open the Indonesian borders again for this season. "For the export of Dutch onions to Indonesia this is an important, incomprehensibly missed opportunity costing the sector a lot of money. "

At the moment the price per bale is about 25 cents. "Last year prices in Asia for 10kg of onions were 3.50 dollars. This is more than 5 dollars now and that is a lot of money for these markets. Especially when one realizes that the quality image of Dutch onions has not been all that good for the last few years," Jac sighs. "Nevertheless, because of a shortage of alternatives Dutch onions will have to be imported in the future. It will be interesting to see at which price level this will happen. Also New-Zealand onions got good prices Asia last season. However, the last shipments from New-Zealand have arrived there. The total European onion harvest this year will be a lot smaller with the result that European destinations will be buying at an earlier stage as well."

Jac is happy with the quality. "I travelled through the north of the Netherlands and there beautiful onions come off the fields. The onions look a lot healthier than the last few years with, at the moment, less inside and external quality problems. I am happy with the late Summer, which at the moment is taking care of a beautiful harvest quality wise. I saw fields of red and yellow onions with a very large yield potential and a beautiful coarse assortment per hectare, but there are fields as well with only half this potential with the result of course of a fine assortment only."

"The northern part of the Netherlands is significantly better in quality, size and yield in red and yellow onions than the southern part of the Netherlands. It also appears that clients place their orders more in the north. In short I expect a good onion season provided we get good harvesting weather and our onions will come in under good circumstances and we as the Netherlands do not price ourselves our of the market too much with onion prices which are too high."

For more information:
Jac Oomen
Oomen Agro BV
25, Vollenhoverweg
8316 PW Marknesse
Tel.: 0031 527 24 12 86
Cell: 0031 6 - 53 76 95 78
Fax: 0031 527 24 40 97
info@oomenagro.com
www.oomenagro.com