Suffolk vegetable grower James Foskett has told the East Anglian Daily Times that most of his crops have seen reasonable yields, despite the difficult dry weather, but that he faces an ‘eye-watering’ increase in onion storage costs.
Including curing and storage, he estimates that each tonne of onions will costs £90-95/tonne to store, compared with just £16/tonne last year. With around 8,000 tonnes of onions harvested this year, his total storage bill could reach more than £720,000.
“Some of the onions we store through to June next year,” he said. “The onions must be cured which takes a lot of energy.”
In addition, he also grows seed and ware potatoes, where storage costs are expected to increase from around £30/tonne to £80-90/tonne. “So, the energy charges will really start to bite,” he says. “There’s slightly less energy used in storing potatoes and we don’t store them as long.” He now only stores most of his potatoes until January or February.
However, despite rising costs, prices for vegetables have not really changed. “Other things have big time but it’s going to have to happen,” he says. “The next round of negotiations for next year’s crop is going to see huge inflation. It’s going to be crunch time.” In addition, there has been no price increase for his organic crops but sales of organic produce are down by about quarter.
James told the newspaper he won’t be growing some of his vegetables without a 20% uplift next year because of cost inflation across a range of inputs including red diesel, energy, fertiliser and wages. “I think if we break even, I’ll be happy,” he said. “Overall, we won’t have a very good year at all because of the increase in costs and because of the irrigation costs, apart from anything else.”
