The question on everyone lips is whether onions will still be available in our supermarkets soon. The warm summer caused a much lower onion harvest. “In 20 years we’ve never experienced anything like this,” says Erik Waterman, manager of Waterman Onions from Emmeloord, the Netherlands. The company buys onions from national and international growers, and supplies these to global customers sorted and packed.
Despite the smaller harvest, there’s no reason to panic. On the contrary. “In the Netherlands, we have onions on the shelves throughout the year. We won’t have a shortage on the shelves.”
Abroad, however, people will definitely notice that 2018 was a bad year for the harvest. “Normally, the largest part of the Dutch onion harvest is exported. This export will be lower, because we’ll just be out of onions. This could provide us with some challenges, but we’ll gladly face them.”
In the Netherlands we’ll therefore just be eating onion soup this winter. Whether they’ll do so in the rest of the world remains to be seen.
Source: Waterman Onions