Supplies of Texas onions are currently described as even.
“For a normal year, which we are definitely not in, I would think supplies are kind of light. But for the situation we’re in, supplies are adequate,” says J Carnes of Winter Garden Produce in Uvalde, Tex.
Carnes notes that production out of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas began on March 15th. “And up here in the Winter Garden region, we’re just getting ready to start,” says Carnes. “Generally, we start May 1st and go to the middle or end of June.”
Sizing though on this year’s onions might be off somewhat. “We didn’t have a normal cold winter around here and so the onions were ready earlier than they usually are,” says Carnes. “Because they got ready early and we hadn’t had a normal late spring-early summer weather pattern yet, they didn’t have enough heat units to size up.”
Competing states
As far as competing regions, while the Valley is one of them, it’s largely California competing on bagged and boxed onions and sweet onions out of Vidalia, Ga. Storage onions also continue to move.
Meanwhile Carnes says demand improves daily on onions. “When COVID-19 started, the first couple of weeks were really tough and we were looking at 25-30 percent of normal movement. There was also a retail bump in there but not enough to cover everything,” he says. “And then it’s slowly been coming back, and I’d say we’re closer to normal now.”
As for pricing, Carnes says in a normal year, pricing right now would be considered good. “But as they are, they’re not great. But they’re also not the worst pricing,” he says. “It’s been pretty steady in the past couple of weeks. There was a bump right after COVID-19 hit the market and then after that, pricing was pretty far down. It’s since inched back up.”
For more information:
J Carnes
Winter Garden Produce
Tel: +1 (830) 278-3323
jac@wintergp.com