Walla Walla Onions
Growers of Walla Walla sweet onions use sweetness certification to confirm what they already know — their onions are some of the most consistently sweet ones in the marketplace.
Bryon Magnaghi, general manager for Walla Walla Gardeners’ Association Inc., Walla Walla, Wash., said the association relies on a local lab to do sweetness testing for its growers.
The testing is thorough, and, given the high quality of Walla Wallas and the experience of its growers, usually superfluous, Magnaghi said.
But it does provide customers with an iron-clad guarantee.
“We test every field, and we very rarely find any Walla Wallas that are not sweet,” he said.
Not only is the Gardeners’ Association happy to test, it hopes that eventually the U.S. sweet onion industry will develop a standardized test, so that everything that bills itself as “sweet” really is sweet, Magnaghi said.
That would level the playing field, and expose pretenders for what they are, he said.
“There are some who don’t adhere to (a high standard of sweetness) as much as they should,” he said.
“We’ve been in this a long time, and we feel that everything we ship is sweet.”
Prospects for such a national standard are likely not great in the short term, Magnaghi said.
“Right now, it’s more driven by customers than by consumers,” he said.
Long-term, he’s more optimistic.
“I think eventually, as the category grows, it may change,” he said. “I think the industry has it in its sights.”
Stefan Matheny, product development manager of Hermiston, Ore.-based River Point Farms LLC, said the company has relied on one of the top third-party providers for its sweetness certification for years.
Matheny wasn’t sure whether an industry-wide sweetness standard would be adopted.
He is, however, sure about the value River Point has gotten out of certification.
“It provides a good comparison with onions from other regions,” he said.
What certification helps quantify objectively is what Walla Walla growers have long known: that the variety is consistently very low in pungency, year in and year out, Matheny said.
“It’s unique in taste and appearance,” he said.
Harry Hamada, manager of Walla Walla River Packing & Storage LLC, Walla Walla, said the company has relied on National Onion Labs for its certification for years.
The work certifiers do is important, Hamada said, but often it comes down to the less scientific tests customers do themselves.
“More and more you see buyers taste-testing onions,” he said. “That’s the ultimate test, whether you can pass that or not.
Dan Borer, general manager of Greencastle, Pa.-based Keystone Fruit Marketing Inc., said the company uses the same certifier, National Onion Labs, for all of its sweet onions, whether they come from Washington, Georgia, Mexico, Peru or another growing region.
That helps level the playing field, so consumers of a Keystone onion know they’re getting the same standard of sweetness regardless of where the onion is grown, he said.
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