There's a cautious mood on the onion market at the moment. "The overseas export of onions isn't going great yet, and export figures amount to around 20,000 tonnes a week. That's really not enough, given the good yields. Last year around this time, the onions had been in storage for four weeks already," says Adriaan van Belzen of Daily Onions, which has been active on the European market for three years.
"Africa buys the usual volumes, but export is too one-sided, and hardly any new destinations are participating. In Eastern Europe, there is definitely demand for onions, but everyone is waiting for demand to really start. All in all, there are a lot of uncertainties. The quality is reasonably good. Not like last year, but the quality was exceptional then," Adriaan goes on to say.
"The situation is totally different from last year. Then we started out low, and could only go up. This year, expectations were high, but demand is what we're waiting for now. Prices for England are between 18 and 20 cents. Off land, the grower got 12 to 15 cents. They won't sell for less than 15 cents now. I expect the growers to sit on their onions in the next three months," the trader concludes.
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