Mike Blake with New Zealand Onion Co. recently provided a crop update on 2021, calling it “Onion Trading in a COVID World, Round 2.”
Mike said, “We have started packing and shipping for the 2021 season to normal overseas destinations like Spain, United Kingdom, Germany, Holland and Indonesia. I would describe the market to be somewhat hesitant for commitments due to the global uncertainty.”
He continued, “It is obvious that overseas markets want to go as long as possible on domestic supplies, which puts the uncertainty into the market as to when the window will be for Southern Hemisphere suppliers.” He said the change back to domestic sources for those markets “will be controlled by the spring weather in the Northern Hemisphere, which is somewhat uncertain at this time.”
Looking at the 2021 New Zealand growing season, Mike said, that in Pukekohe “we had a reasonable growing season and harvest of early crops. Early long keepers are well underway, and we now are maybe 50 percent complete. On average crops are somewhat bolder than we have seen for the last few seasons.”
Quality, he said, “generally can be described as excellent, hard and clean and with many skins and without any internal issues, so we are expecting a good storage crop.” Mike said he does not expect a surplus of onions sized less than 70 mm.
“We have a long way to go, but for now we hope the shipping lines can get us to the market without any major delays that some other countries are currently experiencing,” Mike said. “This 2021 Southern Hemisphere season will be an interesting one to watch, but as always the Best quality always finds a home.”
