With a team of three, William Hoekman from QA Services is actively engaged in the onion business on a daily basis. For exporters and importers, batches are inspected to provide the customer with insight into all quality aspects of the batch. Besides inspection, providing storage advice is becoming increasingly important. "Many customers ask us to examine the product. There's a lot to gain there because if you select the right batches for the country and the customer in advance, you can prevent a lot of frustration."
Inspecting onions is truly a specialty of QA Services. "We also inspect (sweet) potatoes, garlic, and carrots, but about 80% of our activities are focused on onions. We are working with Dutch onions all year round. Now the import season is underway again, and we work for both Dutch importers and a New Zealand exporter. There are more inspection companies in the fresh produce market, but we have hardly any competition in the onion market. In the field of onions, we actually collaborate with other QA companies by inspecting the onions for them."
"Each onion season is unique. This year, there was a lot of export early in the planting onion season, which continued until the end of the year. After that, the market slumped, and in recent years, the spring has seen more and more bad periods. Currently, we are seeing a lot of wear issues due to shooting in the onions," William explains. "The work is only increasing. In recent years, exporters have really been making an effort to send an even better product to prevent complaints and claims. A few years ago, inspections were often done on a sampling basis, but this is increasingly shifting towards inspecting all batches."
Imported onions
"Starting next week, Egyptian onions will also start arriving again. It remains to be seen how their quality will develop. With the New Zealand onions, we see a more uniform quality in the yellow onions than last year. There have been more red onions coming in this year than in other years. The quality differences are bigger. It's going to be interesting to see how the market develops now that more Dutch onions have turned up than was anticipated. Now that the price has dropped, it's always a bit exciting to see if the import is worth it, but if the supermarkets switch over, then the trade will naturally pick up."
All inspections are carried out by QA Services on location. Random samples are taken from the batch offered for inspection, which are assessed for external and internal quality. "In general, we see the quality of onions improving thanks to optical sorting. This new sorting technique is increasingly being embraced, both with large and smaller sorting installations. All packers are looking for the best way. After all, people are scarce and moreover, we see that optical sorting leads to a quality improvement of the sorted product."
"The bad batches are mainly with the farmer, where in recent years we've increasingly seen that packers don't even start with bad batches anymore. Packing bad onions makes no sense at all with all the risks of claims. With the expensive onions this year, that cost a lot of money. That's why we put a lot of effort into advising. From our experience, we are regularly asked for storage advice, and we like to think along about optimal storage. That gets you further than just judging the onions like a police."
It is also possible to employ QA Services in the event of a dispute to have an independent party assess the situation. "The quality of the product always comes first. We don't enter into discussions but document the facts in a report. It's then up to the exporter what he does with it," says William, who took over the company from his father-in-law with his wife Corry five years ago. He is not worried about the demand for QA services. "When customers are satisfied with your work, business will of course grow."
For more information:
William Hoekman
Q·A Services
Dorpsstraat 60
4413 BN Krabbendijke
M. 06 30 38 63 64
[email protected]
www.q-a-services.com