Idaho-E. Oregon Onion Committee on a quest for new moniker for the area's onions
Idaho-E. Oregon Onion Committee on a quest for new moniker for the area's onions
"Big" is a word used to describe much about the onion industry of the Snake River Valley of Idaho and the adjacent counties of eastern Oregon.
With its average 21,000 acres planted each year, the region makes up the largest storage onion-producing region in the United States and accounts for more than 24,000 carlots shipped and 25 percent of all fresh bulb onions consumed nationally in the United States each year.
Also big is the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee, a body governed by a federal marketing order, which is comprised of more than 300 growers and 36 shippers. The onions produced in the area are large, with 65 percent of any given crop averaging more than three inches in diameter. The globes also boast a nine-month shelf life and give consumers up to 28 percent more usable product, pound for pound, than smaller onions.
All this size is well and good, but committee Marketing Director Sherise Jones said recently that the committee is looking to scale down one big attribute of the onion: its name.
For years, the product has been called Idaho-eastern Oregon Spanish onions, a mouthful to verbalize and a challenge to promote with graphics.
"We made a decision early in the year to get a new brand name for our onions," Ms. Jones said in mid-February. "Right now, we're dominant in foodservice, and we want to be included on more menus. We also want to penetrate the retail market more, and we feel the name might be difficult for consumers. What we want is a name that is representative of the region and the attributes of the onions."
Entries in a contest to find this new name will be accepted through March 15, and the winner will receive $250. "We started the contest just within the industry," Ms. Jones noted. "Then we put information on our web site, www.bigonions.com, and sent out a press release. Now we have more than 300 names entered. It's really wild - we're getting entries from the East Coast and all the way down in Florida."
Among the suggestions already received by the commission are "Savory Giants," "Volcanic Sweets" and "Mammoth Mesa Onions."
Ms. Jones said that she is redesigning the logo, which is a cogged wheel design with Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onions written across it, and she said that the new name and logo will be chosen in plenty of time for the committee's 50th anniversary in 2007.
