By John Harris
I am fresh back from a trip to the Texas Valley. To say the shelves were bare would be understating things. I have been traveling to McAllen for 20 years to visit shippers that have become very good friends over the years and have never seen so few onions in my life down there for the last week of February. I had to see it with my own eyes to really understand just how little there actually is available.
Most of what I did see was white onions which was sight for sore eyes to say the least. There were also a few yellows and a handful of reds as well to look at, but most of what we did see was pre-committed. What I can report is that the quality in general was very good. Mexico has had an ideal harvest season with perfect weather and temperatures the last several weeks. The yellows look fantastic. The onions were well cured, bulb temps were cool and the necks were, generally speaking, dried down and sizing was pretty uniform. The few reds we saw were much of the same. I am always partial to a storage crop red as long as they hold, but the reds were very nice for new crop reds and had beautiful color.
Whites were a bit of a mixed bag. Compared to pictures that had been coming across for the several weeks prior to last week, things have improved a great deal. With the high prices, there are whites in a lot of different hands this year of people that don’t normally handle them, and with that brings a lot of different prices and a lot of different quality of packs. I saw some product that was absolutely perfect and demanding the top of the market and I saw some lesser packs that were more affordable, if you will, but not as picture perfect. The stuff that was perfect had necks that were perfectly cured and free of any green shoulders or veins and very uniform sizing. It would go anywhere in country without question. The cheaper options had a bit a green veining, and some shoulder greening that was visible, but not severe and the sizing was not nearly as tight. An overall very good pack, but with different options available now and such high FOBs, buyers are going to become more particular again. As far as whites are concerned, you are definitely going to get what you pay for in the coming weeks without question. As the week goes on, we should see more Mexican yellows and reds become available and only increase in volume over the next two weeks.
Texas onions should become available in smallish volume starting around March 18th and then increasing in availability later into the month. The fields we walked through early last week were just about to receive their last irrigation and will likely get clipped sometime next week.
As far as storage crop is concerned, it isn’t time to jump ship at all. There is pretty good availability of red and yellow onions for at least another 6-8 weeks before things start to get sparse and delivered pricing is likely more favorable in most cases. Things are still certainly tight, but not quite like they were a few weeks ago when orders had to be placed a week in advance. Medium reds have become the tightest item in the country to find, taking over white onions in the sparse category.
The storage crop market is very steady. We have seen the red and yellow market back off just ever so slightly in the last couple of weeks, but with the short supplies and good spring demand, it could easily go higher. I’d expect it to just stay steady at this point. The Mexican market on whites, like I said before is all over the place and you are going to get what you pay for. Having a well connected supplier that is going to tell you how it is and not tell you what you want to hear is going to be pretty important on the white front going forward. There are so few yellows and reds available, that what market there is on those is rock solid right now.
As always, I do appreciate any feedback I get and would be happy to share further information or answer any questions from my visit. Just pop me a call or email and I’d love the chat. Until next time, have a great week.
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.
