"When one door closes, another window opens," is how Wim Waterman of Waterman Onions sums up the onion market. "In fact, you see that some growers are closing their doors, but others are reopening from parties they need to move on, for various reasons. Other years, those onions often went to Poland, but we lost that market for a while, so they are being sorted and offered more this year."
Total exports in the 2025/26 season up to week 38 amount to 329,978 tons, 28% more than last season, according to GroentenFruit Huis and KCB export statistics. "You would therefore think that the price would also go up, also because some doors are closing, now that growers have their onions stored. But because a window keeps opening, that just doesn't happen," Wim continues.
© Waterman OnionsErik and Wim Waterman
"You now see different forces coming into play that believe the price should go up or down, each from their own position and quality. We think the price must rise, but that is not easy when there is always a window open somewhere," Wim continues in metaphor. "But the starting position for exports is favourable. You don't achieve the current export figures only with the UK and Senegal, so sales are spread widely. Also, logistically, there are no major obstacles."
"Basically, a lot of signals are green. Only there needs to be some movement in the price, and that just won't happen for now. But we are also just looking out of the window here and can't see everything," Wim laughs. "The onion harvest is almost over. The quality is very variable this year, but most of it is fine. The trend in recent years, though, is that the tare percentage has increased somewhat. This may also be a consequence of the new growers who have joined the sector, because this year, you can immediately see who the quality growers are. Furthermore, you can clearly see which plots have been flooded."
"The marketing of red onions is even more challenging than yellow, with red it is really about finding export opportunities. Above the 60-80 size grade, it's not a problem, but you also have to export the smaller sizes, and generally, the onions have not grown too coarse. The effect of the expansion of the red onion acreage is not yet entirely clear to me. Prices, while lower than last year, are still higher than for yellow onions. Marketing of organic onions is also still difficult. But the situation with organic is always a bit more extreme than with conventional, both positively and negatively."
For more information:
Wim Waterman
Waterman Onions
Hannie Schaftweg 12
8304 AR Emmeloord
+31 (0) 527 617 496
[email protected]
www.waterman-onions.nl
