Prices of Polish onions - low, but not falling.

On the Polish wholesale market, onion prices remain low. This is primarily a result of the high supply of early onions, combined with a seasonal decrease in demand from processors. This summer, there were periods of almost zero interest in purchasing domestic onions for peeling.

Not only due to the current processing limitations of this raw material, although this phenomenon was clearly present. Even if the onions were processed, they faced stiff competition from Dutch onions, which rapidly and significantly dropped in price. The import prices (onions for processing) descended to levels of 0.50-0.55 PLN/kg (0.12-0.13 EUR/kg), making them competitive with domestic prices.

Dutch onions continue to pose significant competition in this sector. The Dutch are quickly selling off their spring onions at low prices to kick off the onion export season as soon as possible. The issue is that these cheap Dutch onions already have very poor quality.

Moreover, in Poland, the market is entering a regular phase of the season. The first offers for spring onions have already appeared. They range from 0.90 PLN/kg to even 1.15 PLN/kg (0.21-0.27 EUR/kg) for bulk onions. Spring onions in bags currently have prices mostly between 0.80-1.00 PLN/kg (0.19-0.23 EUR/kg). Onions for peeling, of relatively good quality, are offered at around 0.50 PLN/kg (0.12 EUR/kg), but there is also a lot of lower quality and cheaper produce available.

As for bagged onion prices, in the Polish wholesale market, they have remained relatively stable for weeks. The Polish onion market avoided major price cuts since the second half of July, while in the Netherlands, there was a continuous downward trend, with prices dropping by over 10 percent weekly. This was reported on the fresh-market.pl portal.

Currently, bagged onion prices are even slightly strengthening. Presently, in the wholesale market, selling prices mostly range from 1.00-1.20 PLN/kg (0.23-0.28 EUR/kg). As seen on our chart, these are still relatively low prices. Only in two out of the previous five seasons were prices lower at the end of August.

However, there are indications that spring onion yields have significantly suffered due to unfavorable weather conditions, and the harvests may be worse than estimated. This could lead to a fundamental change in onion prices on the wholesale market.