"Demand in the onion market has completely dropped since last week, putting significant pressure on prices. We need weekly exports of 20,000 tons to move all the onions. The question now is how the market will respond. Ultimately, supply and demand will balance out. It remains an onion market, often driven by sentiment—whether justified or not," observes Lindert Moerdijk of MSP Onions in Nieuwdorp.
Despite the current decline in demand, MSP is facing a structural capacity challenge, according to Lindert. To address this, MSP is launching construction plans for a new facility this year, called MSP Platinum. Until now, MSP has operated with a traditional packing station alongside a state-of-the-art, fully automated packing station (MSP Gold), which sorts exclusively using AI. "MSP Gold has undergone an extensive development process that now enables it to deliver the best quality on the market. By striving for the highest level of perfection, quality is now programmable. The quality gap between this and traditional processing methods has become so significant that demand for our products consistently exceeds our processing capacity. Additionally, we see enormous potential in red onions and consumer packaging."
"The motto for MSP Platinum is 'when better is possible, good is not good enough.' We are incorporating all the lessons learned from MSP Gold into MSP Platinum. One key lesson is that building a new factory starts with software capabilities. MSP Gold runs entirely on Eqontrol software, which will also be the foundation for MSP Platinum. As a result, Platinum will operate fully autonomously, minimizing human intervention. Retail and red onions will be key focus areas in the new plant, so we have prioritized extreme product friendliness. This will ensure that Dutch onions remain on the shelves in April, May, and June," Lindert assures.
For the extensive project, MSP has chosen Burg Machinery from Kruiningen to handle the engineering. "I was pleasantly surprised to see how much experience Burg Machinery has with gentle product handling. Their machines are widely used in the fruit industry, and their approach to product care was a real eye-opener. Additionally, Burg has extensive experience in box handling," says Lindert.
"I am convinced that with the combination of Eqontrol and Burg, we have a golden partnership to make MSP Platinum the ultimate evolution of MSP Gold. Within two years, we aim to optically grade all our onions—yellow and red—for both internal and external quality with 99.9% accuracy. We will be the only packer capable of programming and guaranteeing quality at this level!"
MSP Onions is an exhibitor at Fruit Logistica: Hall 27 - stand F-41
For more information:
Lindert Moerdijk
MSP Onions
Hertenweg 32a
4455 TL Nieuwdorp
[email protected]
www.msp-onions.com