Foodservice onion demand showing improvement

With vaccinated millions on the move again, onion shippers are optimistic about the shape of foodservice demand in the coming months.

“Foodservice demand is good and continues trending upward,” said Onni Lufkin, director of onion sales for ProSource, Hailey, Idaho.

“Considering we were down 70-80% of normal this time last year, we feel good to be ranging between 85% of normal now.”

Lufkin said the company anticipates a boost in demand this summer as more outdoor dining options are available nationwide. 

“As over 100 million people in the U.S. are now fully vaccinated, we are very optimistic moving into the summer months. “

In addition, Lufkin said USDA purchases could help shippers, although the end of the USDA Families to Farmers Food Box Program is concerning.

“With The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) program rolling out in June, we do not anticipate a big change from last summer,” Lufkin said. 

“From what we understand, this program looks to be structured very similar to the USDA (Farmers to Families) Food Box Program. We have had several customers reaching out for supply of this program shipping the months of June-September.”

For Nyssa, Ore.-based Snake River Produce, Tiffany Cruickshank, assistant general manager, said foodservice demand was about 60% of normal in early May, with ebbs and flows as areas open and close.
Shay Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce, Nyssa, agreed that foodservice demand was on the rise in early May.

The tight truck market in April may have restrained movement of onions just as the country and foodservice operations started to open, said Don Ed Holmes, owner of Onion House, Weslaco, Texas.

“It’s hard to get the market up when the truck deal was just terribly tight,” he said. “All these things were coming back to life and goods and service suddenly were going where they weren’t going before. We had lots of freight to haul because people are moving around again, and there just wasn’t enough trucks.”

Holmes said in early May that the freight tightness was starting to work itself out, a development which could spur better onion movement and prices.