Featured image: Don Ed Holmes (left) with Lance Neuhaus (right), photo courtesy of the Onion House
One of the largest and best-known grower/shippers of Rio Grande Valley onions and a major player in the Mexican onion deal changed hands recently when Don Ed Holmes sold The Onion House in Weslaco to Lance Neuhaus.
Lance, a lifelong farmer and longtime John Deere equipment dealer in the RGV, told Onion Business on March 9 that he and his wife, Melissa, and their two sons, Clayton and Colton, finalized the purchase from Don Ed and Janie Holmes at the end of 2023.
“Our intention is to keep the successful program Don Ed has had,” Lance said of the 25-year-old operation Don Ed launched in 1999. Both men said Don Ed will remain at the sales desk through this year with the option to extend his consulting time with the firm.
“It’s all about relationships and trust and knowing you’re going to do what you say,” Lance said of their shared business philosophy.
“One of the reasons I really like the operation Don Ed and Janie built is that it has Texas, Mexico, Colorado and Utah,” Lance continued. Those programs, which provide all three colors, will stay in place. Currently the Tampico season is underway, with reports of increasing volume weekly. Texas onions will start the third week of March, Don Ed said recently.
Colorado traditionally kicks off around Labor Day and runs through the end of the year, and Utah starts shipping in late fall and generally runs through the winter holidays.
Lance said more equipment is being installed in the shed, which will pack onions grown by both the Neuhaus and Holmes farms as well as for other growers. New baggers and consumer packaging equipment as well as additional ventilation are in the works at the shed, he said.
Sharing the new owner’s enthusiasm about the future, Don Ed said he’s very happy to continue with The Onion House as a consultant and is optimistic about the new year.
“The same crew is staying with the company,” he said, noting he and Chuck Hill, a longtime onion veteran who has been with The Onion House since 2009, will be handling sales along with Tim Bull, who worked with Lance at the John Deere dealership for nearly two decades.
In addition to their common denominator of Rio Grande Valley onions, Don Ed and Lance share a similar Texas farming background.
Don Ed grew up in theWest Texas community of Floydada where his father, Chuck Holmes, farmed cotton and started growing onions in 1954. Don Ed’s onion career started when he was in the first grade and consisted of picking up empty burlap bags off the shed floor after the onions had been dumped into the grader.
Some years later he was promoted to turning the sacking wheel. When he turned 13, he began driving a forklift and loading trucks and boxcars.
During the summer before his junior year at Texas Tech, Don Ed worked for DeBruyn in Las Cruces, NM, and the next May, went full time. He worked in transportation and then sales, and in 1984 he became GM of DeBruyn Produce- Weslaco, TX, division. Fifteen years later Don Ed and Janie started The Onion House.
Also a Texas native, Lance is the third generation of the Neuhaus family to grow crops in the Rio Grande Valley. “My grandfather moved to the Valley in 1943 and started farming,” he told Onion Business. “I was born and raised in Weslaco, and my wife, my two sons, and I all graduated from Texas A&M.”
Lance said his father started working with the John Deere dealership in the late 1960s, and in 1996, after partnering with other owners, the Neuhaus family took full ownership of the operation.
Eventually, Lance and one of his brothers were the sole owners of the Rio Grande Valley’s five John Deere dealerships.
“We sold in 2017, and I stayed with farming while my brother went in another direction,” Lance continued. The farm raises a wide variety of Texas crops. “We grow citrus, winter greens, cabbage and watermelons, and we added onions in the last decade.”
After the decision was made to expand the onion category vertically with packing and shipping, Lance and Don Ed, who have known each other for several years, began talks.
This first season will see the new equipment, and Lance said future expansion will likely include new markets and possibly additional growing areas with plans on the board for a 12-month operation, the new Onion House owner said.
For additional information, contact The Onion House at (956) 973-0552 or 1- 800-454-4555.
