ONION SEASONALITY
Onions are available year-round, but they are a seasonal item! In order to have onions to enjoy throughout the year, product must be sourced from a variety of regions and stages in the vegetable's life cycle.
Nevada and Pacific Northwest Onion Season
Onions peak in their quality in Fall through winter when sourced from Nevada and the Pacific Northwest after they have had plenty of time to cure.
Cured Red Onion
This is the onion most of us are most accustomed to. The curing gives the onion a hard, uniform, papery skin. However, as the onions reach the end of their storage season they want to grow again. Around February we may see sprouting as storage crop inventories begin to dwindle.
California Onion Season
The California season historically starts up around mid-April down south in Brawley/ El Centro and moves its way up north into the Bakersfield area. The new California crop is barely cured. This means they will not have the hard exterior skin seen in peak season products from up north. The skin will likely be shaggy and flaky. There are benefits to fresh crop product! They are sweeter, far less pungent and there are no issues with sprouting.
Fresh Crop Yellow Onion
It’s common for fresh onions to appear pale and even almost white. This is both a varietal difference and a result of the short cure time. When yields are down from the storage Pacific Northwest/Nevada season, there may be a gap before the new California product starts. This will be filled with fresh product from Mexico that has many of the same traits as fresh California product.
Market Update: Storage red onions are done, and we have moved fully into new crop out of Mexico. California will start up with new crop red onions in the middle of May out of El Centro. Storage yellow onions continue out of the Pacific Northwest a little longer. We will see some fresh crop California yellow onions this week from Heger out of El Centro and Calo starting up the last week of April. Storage sweet yellow onions from the Pacific Northwest are done and we will see a trickling of product out of Mexico this week. Stay tuned for more updates!