“Challenging season ahead due to increasing supply of organic onions”

In recent years, a considerable number of conventional onion growers have switched to growing organically. “Each year the complete supply of organic onions grows, and additionally, average yields seem very good this year. Last year, this had already caused a slight oversupply, and the big question is how structural that will be in coming years,” says purchasing manager Matthé Hendrikse of OTC Holland. “Availability and quality is good this year, but that doesn’t always result in a price guarantee. This year it also doesn’t look as if we have the safety net that the conventional cultivation has. Overall, Europe appears to have a good harvest, and that could result in pressure on the prices.”

“The season of the organic plant onions had a difficult start. Organic onions from Egypt were still on the market, so that certain customers switched to the new Dutch harvest later. But the largest issue is Fusarium, which was present in many batches of plant onions, and which developed quickly,” Matthé says. “By now we have partially switched towards organic seed onions, but we consider it a challenge to market the final plant onions in the correct manner.”

Compared to conventional onions, he doesn’t expect increasing export for organic onions to overseas destinations. “For OTC, there are few far-off markets where we could go with our organic onions, and I don’t think this will develop explosively in coming years,” Matthé concludes.