Ukrainian farmers have begun increasing the wholesale prices of their onions last week. The primary reason behind the price hike was that they were drying out their the supply of cheap onions that were unsuitable to be stored for long periods of time. In the meantime, growers attempted to store premium products hoping that the prices will rise in the coming season, according to Eastfruit.

The market is currently flooded with Ukrainian producers are selling fresh onion at prices of 12-16 UAH per kg (US $0.33-0.44/kg) that is typically 20 percent more than what they were the previous week. According to market experts this increase in prices has led to a significant increase of trade activity in this market on the verge of the holiday season. In spite of the increase in prices, Ukrainian farmers still sell onions for at less than 43% lower prices when compared with the same period the previous year. Markets are expecting a new onion price increases, but the prospects of price increases aren’t evident.

In the first place, there are more onion stocks in a variety of nations, including Turkey, Egypt, Poland, Moldova and all countries that are part of Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan) are significantly higher than they were one year ago. Additionally, within the EU, even with less per hectare yields in a lot of countries as well as issues with the quality of onions, overall production volume was generally higher.

Thus, the real price increase could surprise market participants because everyone’s anticipating price increases and stocking as much onions as is possible.

Source: east-fruit.com