The Peruvian import season of sweet onions is well under way with steady supplies.
“We are out of our Vidalias and domestic onions and we’re now importing Peruvian sweets. The Vidalia season ended at the end of August, the usual time, and we had a good crop this year,” says Lauren Dees of Lake Park, Ga.-based Generation Farms. “The Peruvian season started right after Vidalias stopped.”
Demand right now for sweet onions looks to be steady. “There’s year-round demand for them so it’s important to us to have a complete sweet onion program available year-round,” she says. “The Peruvian is a nice compliment to the Vidalia.”
While containers of Peruvian sweet onions steadily arrive, Generation will work with them until February, after which it turns back to a domestic program. “Then we’ll go back to our Florida sweet onion program and that runs until the Vidalias start, which is usually the mid to end of April,” adds Dees.
Tearless onions
At the same time, Generation is, for the second year in a row, marketing a Sunion program. The onions, which are grown in Washington State, are marketed as the first tearless onion. “We had a fantastic response last year from retailers and from consumers. We had a limited crop but we were able to get it out to some of the stores and we’re looking to do more this year with Sunions,” says Dees. “We’re looking to expand that program on the East Coast, specifically the southeast regions and we’ll continue to ship into the northeast region as well.”
Pricing even
Pricing meanwhile is steady on sweet onions and similar to last year’s pricing. “And as more and more Peruvian containers come in, we’ll see sales increase as the supply becomes available,” says Dees.
First-time exhibitor at PMA
Both the Sunion program and the sweet onion program as well as organic onions are all going to be on display at Generation Farms’ booth at the Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit, taking place in Orlando October 18-20. “We’ll also promote our grower services program which is a number of different services we offer including repacking, restacking, cold storage and more,” says Dees. “This is our first time exhibiting at this show so we’re looking forward to being out there so people can get to know us better.”
For more information:
Lauren Dees
Generation Farms
Tel: +1 (912) 526-3575
ldees@generationfarms.com
https://generationfarms.com/