The onion market has firmed up with performance eclipsing early season predictions, leading Don Ed Holmes of The Onion House LLC in Weslaco, TX, to think it will be a good year.

“It should be a darn good year but not a crazy one like 2010,” he said.

In 2010, onion prices hovered around $40 a box for the entire season due to low supply. In 2011-12, Texas growers chasing those markets planted additional acreage that led to oversupply and a race to the bottom of the market.

True to its name, The Onion House specializes in Texas’ finest. (Photo courtesy of TX Dept. of Agriculture)With 40 percent less onion acreage in Texas this year than in 2011, dwindling storage supplies in the Northwest and just a trickle of product from Mexico, Mr. Holmes believes 2013 is shaping up more like 2007, when “supplies from Mexico were short and we had a good market all season. And Vidalia [GA] got an awful lot of rain, so their crop could be smaller also. And I’ve heard that Southern California is down,” he said.

Demand is strong in the early going of the Texas deal, Mr. Holmes added. “Our customers, especially the foodservice guys, are putting in bigger orders. The market is higher and movement is better, which usually isn’t the case.”

And while no one is predicting a return to 2010 levels, “I think we will see some markets in the upper teens or low-$20s with whites a bit higher,” Mr. Holmes said.

Great weather helped The Onion House get out of the gate early with its Texas onions.

“The weather has just been perfect. There was one week in there you could actually call winter and that was it, the first week of January. Prior to that, it was unusually warm and since then it’s been a little above average,” Mr. Holmes said.

Texas constantly worries about water supplies and an ongoing drought does not help that. Water quality in onion growing areas is also a concern that may affect size — but certainly not quality.

“The yields will be off from a year ago but the quality looks real good,” Mr. Holmes said. “Overall size could be a shade smaller because we haven’t had enough water in the reservoirs and the water quality is fairly poor. There’s a lot of salt in the water, which may penalize you on your size a little bit. But we’re still looking at… going through April with some pretty good volumes.”

Last year, The Onion House acquired the rights to a famous brand name from Texas onion history, the “Senorita Sweets” label once held by Griffin-Brand. Salesman Chuck Hill, a long-time veteran of the industry, joined the team two years ago, driving sales along with Mr. Holmes and Steve Roach.

“Steve’s been in the business over 15 years, I’ve been in it 35, Chuck’s been in it 38,” Mr. Holmes said. “Between the three of us we bring a lot of experience to the table.”