There is no shortage of demand for onions, according to Dignus Boone of Bowa, a sorting and packaging company in the Netherlands. “Another ship will leave for Africa at the end of next week, with countries like Gambia and Guinea. Only Ivory Coast has a slight surplus,” he said in early September.
The oft-heard argument that the Netherlands withdrew from the market after two costly years makes no sense, says Dignus. “Onions are currently going to many destinations such as Central America, Malaysia, Israel, the Philippines and Singapore. We were too expensive in recent years, but if your onions are attractive in terms of price, you only have to ‘to get back into the fray.’
At the beginning of September, the prices for medium, large and super balls were 0.19, 0.20 and 0.22 euros respectively. The price of red onions is much higher: 0.35 euros for medium onions and 0.50 euros for large onions. These prices have normalized, which Mr. Dignus does not consider a negative point. “We are used to paying producers within three weeks. If you then have to wait eight weeks to receive your money, it is because there was a lot of debt last year. We therefore appreciate that prices are rising. stabilized. It was becoming a little too much for us.”
Mr. Dignus is cautious about forecasts for the season. “There are a lot of onions. We only buy what we need for the following week. The batches of onions are currently a little behind, which also lowers the price. We have already completely changed d “orientation for sowing onions is different from the past, where we were often still busy with onions at the end of October,” he explains. “But we believe their quality has deteriorated in recent years. Today, we are among the first to switch to sowing onions.
“I have no problem with the quality of the onions, with the exception of one lost block. In any case, the kilos are quite good. Locally, there are blocks of 50 tonnes per hectare, which was not the case in recent years. Some producers got nothing, especially last year. Bowa will continue to explore the optical ranking this season. “We believe in this technology, but we have not yet fully understood it,” concludes Mr. Dignus.
Jan Boone
Mushrooms
Such. 0113 – 503 000
[email protected]
www.bowa bv.nl
[email protected]
