Onion World: The Voice of the Onion Industry

Onion Marketing

Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee Efforts
The seventh annual Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Festival covered a full afternoon of events Aug. 2 at the Malheur County Fairgrounds in Ontario, Ore. The yearly event draws a crowd of locals to view and taste demonstrations and enter various contests.

The festival is also held as part of the goals of the promotional committee.

"We want the folks in the area to learn about our product," Saito said. As well they should. Farmers in the Ontario area produce over 25 percent of all fresh bulbs consumed in the United States, according to the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onions Web site, www.ieoonions.com. The "Spanish Sweets" grown there are known for their size and storability.

"We supply a large amount for such a tiny area," said Kit Kamo, Onion Festival organizer. In fact, she added, a lot of the onions used to make onion blooms in restaurants nationwide are grown in the area.

It seems the organizers' goal of raising awareness is coming to pass. More and more people enter festival contests each year. This year's growth was seen in the cooking division, which was divided into more categories to accommodate the amount of entries.
-Carrie Kennington, editor, Onion World, September/October, pages 14-15.

Larry McKay, left, chairman of the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee, Walt Scott and Ken Teramura stand with Lisa Atagi, vice chair of the promotion committee and dressed as the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion mascot at the festival.

National Onion Association
Lower onion inventories should translate into improved grower returns over the next few months, according to feedback from the National Onion Association Annual Convention.

Fall storage onions marketable stocks estimates tallied during the closing crop reporting session were the lowest in the past four years. Delegates estimated that as of Dec. 1, 2002, there were 36,799,850 fifty-pound units on hand. This compares with 41,615,000 reported as of the same date a year earlier, 40,385,000 in 2000 and 42,646,000 in 1999.

“Supplies appear to be at a manageable level,” noted Mike Kirby, outgoing president of the association. He urged those attending to keep the communications lines open and talk to each other throughout the balance of the shipping season.
-Brent Clement, managing editor, Onion World, January 2003, page 4.

Produce Marketing Evolution
Weak markets continue to be a thorn in growers’ sides as well. Steve Lutz, executive vice president for the Perishables Group, Wenatchee, Wash., said a changing industry is also to blame.

Of course, every segment of agriculture is evolving. Change is the nature of agriculture, Lutz told attendees at the meeting. But he said the early 1990s saw changes more radical than every before.

So what happened?

“The organizations that we sell our product to are fundamentally different today than they were 10 years ago,” Lutz said. “The primary reason they’re different is the consolidation that has occurred at the retail level.”

The retail scenario is much like what is happening to farms: smaller parcels are combining to form larger farms with less people managing them, he said.

Another scenario that comes into play is technology, he added. Today’s consumer expects more, better, faster—and nothing less will do.

“Consumers have an expectation they can buy any product they want at any time of year,” Lutz explained. “The retailer wants to satisfy his customer so the retailer begins looking around saying, ‘Which one of my suppliers is going to be able to give me a year-round product?’”

Not only do consumers expect products to be there on a whim, they expect choice…lots of choice. And with changing households where two parents with 2.5 children is no longer the norm, markets have become increasingly fragmented, Lutz said.

With that comes space allocation in the produce section. Retailers are making sure every square inch counts by using scan stickers to help pinpoint movement of variable weight items, Lutz said. They figure apples generate about $15 to $20 per square foot, while bananas bring in $100 for the same amount of space.

“If retailers come to the conclusion that your product is obsolete, that it’s not making them as much money as something else, guess who’s product is no longer in the grocery store? Yours.” In order to maintain positions, Lutz said organizations need to go to the retailer and tell them how to maximize their product.
-Carrie Kennington, editor, Onion World, March/April 2003, pages 7-8.

Shifting Consumption
One of the biggest shifts in the retail environment is to purchasing food outside of the traditional grocery stores or supermarkets.

According to the National Restaurant Association (NRA), the restaurant-industry’s share of the food dollar is now 46 percent compared to only 25 percent in 1955. Four out of 10 adults eat out on any given day. In total, 54 billion meals are served away from home each year.

The biggest growth in chain restaurants was in the menuing of red and breaded onions. However, the largest interest in trendspotter restaurants were with caramelized onions and “other onions” menu mentions, such as “sweet onions.”

The NOA also places numerous recipes and stories in foodservice publications —publications read by the nation’s chefs and often used to inspire new menu items.

Last program year, the NOA documented 32 placements of onion stories, recipes and photography. These trade articles reached 2.6 million foodservice operators.
-Mary Humann, NOA Consultant, Onion World, January 2003, page 17.