With an abundance of selling points, the ever-growing class remains strong. Spring marks the beginning of candy onions. Because of their sweeter and milder flavor, these famous onions provide a ramification of flavors and uses. Once considered a seasonal providing, multiple North American and South American growing regions permit retail shops to produce candy onions at some point in the 12 months.
During the summertime months and around vacations, sweet onions display their price. When Vidalias begin hitting the marketplace and clients clamor for them, merchandisers can get creative with advertisements, promotions, and in-save shows. “Sweet Onions are king across the class,” says Kelby Werner, operations supervisor with G&R Farms in Glennville, GA. “They anchor sales for the 0.33-largest vegetable category inside the United States. Consumers are using their versatility in the kitchen one year out of the 12 months. Sweet onions are a centerpiece in many excursion dishes, cookouts, and on the family dinner desk.”
Sweet onions are speedy, exceeding different conventional onions in the eyes of customers, says Sal Selletto, produce manager at the Super Foodtown of Sea Girt, NJ, part of the Middletown, NJ-based Food Circus/Foodtown. “They are dwarfing the Spanish onions in income,” he says. “The Spanish onions had been misplaced in the sauce. We nonetheless promote them, but people get so used to candy onions they tend to buy all of them year lengthy.”
Throughout the year, sweet onions ship from Peru, Mexico, Texas, Georgia, California, Washington, Nevada, and other regions, presenting stores with multiple vending possibilities. Spring is a first-rate time to highlight onions in salads and grilling at some stage in holidays consisting of Easter, Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, and commencement celebrations. To provide customers sweet onions to decorate any dish, shops should nicely prepare and construct shows and promotions that encourage customers to location sweet onions in their purchasing carts.
Sweet onions are crucial to a hit produce department, says Lloyd Richter, associate with Richter and Co., Inc., based in Charlotte, NC. “It’s one of this stuff you can’t no longer have. It’s a must-carry item for the chains. Consumers will be disillusioned if they’re no longer available. ” Retailers contend the candy onion category is essential. “It’s a large class,” says Filipe Silva, wellknown supervisor of Seabra Foods Supermarket, a Newark, NJ-primarily based East Coast chain of ethnic-based totally supermarkets. “We sell many sweet onions. We sell quite a few salads, and people love onions at the top of the salads.”
In the US, sweet onions start in March, with Texas growers delivery thru May. In mid-April, Georgia’s Vidalias start transport thru Labor Day. The summertime brings other sweet onions, consisting of Walla Wallas, California Sweets, and Red Italian Sweets. In August, Northwest Sweets begin in Washington and harvest via March. In September, Peru begins transport, presenting outlets with candy onions thru the autumn and wintry weather. “The Vidalia created the sweet onion class,” says Steve Roberson, president of Roberson Onion Corp., primarily based in Hazlehurst, GA. “Now the candy onion class is a yr-spherical class.”
GROWING CATEGORY
“Sweet onion demand continues to grow,” says Mark Breimeister, candy onion specialist with Potandon Produce LLC, Idaho Falls, ID. “Every yr, as increasingly more human beings, turn out to be familiarized, actually with the efforts of the Vidalia Onion Committee to get humans to strive candy onions, the recognition is now spreading to the opposite times of the yr.”
The class is trending. “Instead of being seasonal, you have to have them all of the time,” says John Vlahandreas, national onion sales director of the Idaho Falls, ID-primarily based Wada Farms Marketing Group LLC. “With increasing facts obtainable, the candy onion segment is getting a little larger. We are starting to see greater space in the direction of candy onions.”
Because candy onions possess shorter shelf lives than storage onions, stores can leverage sweet onions’ popularity by highlighting the “clean” component, says Rene Hardwick, director of public and enterprise family members for the National Onion Association (NOA), Greeley, CO. “We suppose all onions are super for retail sales. Sweet, or spring clean onions, as they’re also referred to as adding one more detail to the 12 months-round offerings.” Hardwick recommends displaying sweet onions with springtime recipes or presenting how-to movies from QR codes on the recipes, which may be displayed with the onions.
“Sales of sweet onions continue to outperform years prior,” says Mike Blume, director of income and marketing for Keystone Fruit Marketing, which’s based totally in Greencastle, PA. “Sweet onion sales constitute approximately one-third of the entire onion class sales. The future of candy onions is bright. Onions are one of the maximum purchased vegetables. There are not any signs of that converting anytime soon.”
