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Onion Market Update May 2, 2023
By John Harris
April Showers bring May Flowers. Well, Texas certainly had their fair share of rain over the last month, and as we transition into the month of May, Southern California is in full bloom with onion production. It was quite a challenge to navigate the final weeks of the Mexico and Texas crop, but we made it. With Georgia and California now into full swing, we have some good new options.
Mexico has new growing regions coming on that will bring across production into the US and the Winter Garden area of Texas should get kicked off next week as well. Markets in all of these areas are all a little different due to location and availability of colors, sizes, and packing capabilities. The good news is that we have a lot of options going forward to make sure all orders are covered with the right quality, color availability and delivered pricing that makes the most sense for each order.
It should also be noted that on the next update, we’ll be right around the corner from New Mexico production as well, where we can really settle in for the summer months. Storage crop is all but wrapped up, with a few shippers left that will continue towards the end of May with some reds and yellows.
Yellows – Quality in California and Georgia right now has been very good. Supers seem to be non-existent in both areas, with limited availability on colossals. Jumbos and mediums have decent availability. As we get into next week, California production should be reaching its peak and good supplies should be online. Texas and Mexico will have supplies as well to fill in a few gaps and add some more opportunities for regional buying availability as well.
Whites – Whites have been real tricky to navigate. With California now online, we have more options for availability and solid quality out of that region. Mexico will also continue to cross over some good quality whites in a few different areas as well.
Reds – Georgia has solid availability on jumbo reds right now and some yellows to mix in. They also grew a few whites, but generally speaking for mixer volume. California has reds online as well with good quality and availability right out of the gate. The reds from California this time of year are usually a very deep purple in color and an overall nice onion. It looks like Texas Winter Garden should have red availability towards the end of next week.
Have a great week. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or things to add that I may have missed. I always love the chance to learn something new.
Editors Note: John Harris is the president and founder of Paradigm Fresh and Colorado Cold Connect in Fort Morgan, Colorado. He can be reached at John@paradigmfresh.com.
