Following a challenging growing season for the onion production team at Balle Bros., they are now facing an even more challenging harvest.

For most of the summer there has been more rain than normal. January saw nearly half of the annual rainfall in the upper North Island area. At the end of January, there was flash flooding in isolated areas, and a small number of onions were washed off fields.

"Sizing of our crop is expected to be smaller than normal, with the final marketable yield expected to be lower due to the poor weather and anticipated higher losses during packing," said Simon Vale from Balle Bros.

"There is a reduced supply of onions globally, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, so we expect to see good interest for our onions from our regular customers in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. This year we are looking forward to starting business to Thailand where the import duty has reduced to 0% after signing of an FTA (Free Trade Agreement)."

As with many products, higher production costs and minimal reductions in freight rates ex NZ means that prices will be higher in 2023.

Because of lower imports and improved capacity for exports, disruption to shipping is expected to decrease as the main NZ ports reinstate fixed berthing windows from Q2.

Balle Bros. look forward to continuing to serve their customers with quality onions from NZ.

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com