Four dollars for an onion! Why are they so damn expensive?

[BuelahWitch]

I needed an onion for the casserole I'm making tomorrow. I got a 5lb bag of potatoes for 88 cents. When I went to get the onion(s), all the yellow onions looked like crap. The white ones looked better, but were $2.39 a pound. Since I'm making a large casserole, I opted for a white onion the size of a softball and hoped it was enough. When I went to get rung up that onion cost me $4.49! If I'd gone for a yellow onion I wouldn't have saved much, they were $1.88 a pound, and I didn't want to pay that then get home and have a rotten onion.
When did onions get so expensive? They didn't use to be!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear BeulahWitch!

I don't know.

Maybe they're out of season, and are coming from far away?

Good question!

I'll bet your casserole will be awesome!

:hug:

[BuelahWitch]

3. I'm not sure where they're coming from CP

I can remember buying onions before and knowing that they'd probably cost me less than a dollar. Now it seems they're as bad as tomatoes! But yes, the casserole will be tres awesome! :hug:

[Swede]

2. I think that fad of people wearing them on their belts is making a comback.

[petronius]

12. It's about damn time! Of course, the OP couldn't have gotten a white onion

in that case, because of the war...

[Kali]

4. $2.39/lb?!

ok I will stop bitching about the $1.49/lb for sweet onions now.

I pay about 60 cents a lb for yellow cooking onions and never buy white or purples.

[BuelahWitch]

5. The yellow ones were almost $2

If they hadn't been so decrepit looking I would have bought them. But I wouldn't have saved that much money...

[Kali]

6. wow

I use so many onions - at least two or three a day - I have been complaining about how much they have gone up, but now the prices here don't seem so bad! Onions used to be so cheap it wasn't worth trying to grow them in the garden.

[Arugula Latte]

7. And a single red pepper is $2.50 now (at least in the last store I was in)

I mean, :wtf:

[BuelahWitch]

18. It's crazy, isn't it?

No wonder Americans have such poor diets.

[MajorChode]

8. Are they Vidalias?

Vidalias can get a bit expensive if you don't live close to GA, but it's still nice when they are in season because they are awesome. They haven't shown up around here yet, but I expect them soon.

I just paid 99 cents per pound for sweet yellow onions today, but they are grown here in Texas so they generally aren't that expensive.

[trof]

9. $3.20 per gallon diesel fuel.

Those onions were, in all probability, trucked from somewhere in California or Mexico to Kansas.

A truck took them from the fields to the processing/packing shed.
A truck took them from there to a local warehouse/distribution center.
A truck took them from there to a warehouse/distribution center in your general locale.
A truck took them from there to your local grocery store.
And people had to be paid to load and unload every truck.

In our rural Alabama town (where we used to GROW potatoes, fachristsake!) a 10 pound bag of spuds at Winn-Dixie comes from Simi Valley, CA.
:eyes:

[hobbit709]

10. Around here onions are usually 88 cents/lb

Even the organic ones at Newflower are only about $1.29/lb.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Onions where I am have almost doubled in price in the last month.

No idea why.

And not just one kind, either - all of them.

But thank God, still under $2 a pound!

I can't imagine paying $1.88 let alone $2.49 for a pound of onion. Damn.

[BuelahWitch]

17. A Facebook friend of mine said they're out of season

Personally I have never heard of onions going out of season, but I suppose it could happen.

[MajorChode]

20. They are just now coming into season

At least the ones grown in the US. Florida and California may be able to grow they year round, but I'm not sure. The really good ones like Vidalia and some of the popular Sunbrero onions are just now coming into season and will be available through early summer.

[hedgehog]

13. I worked for a while packing the big sweet onions.

The onions went one at a time past four people and then received a final inspection as they were placed by hand in a crate. I pulled every 20th crate and reinspected to make sure we weren't letting any with bruises or soft spots through. These onions are very fragile. I buy pears mail order at Christmas as a special treat, and I was flabbergasted to see these onions packed pretty much the same way in cushioned boxes.

The discard rate on the sweet onions is higher than on the yellow cooking onions. They just don't keep as well. Once they leave storage, they have to be kept at proper temperature and humidity or they wl go bad.

Having said all that, you wouldn't believe the mark-up between what the farmer/packer got paid and what the onions cost in the store!

[sarge43]

14. The lengthly bout of cold weather in the South did a number on a lot of crops.

Supply vs. demand.

[Dr Morbius]

15. Um...

Maybe you are going to the wrong store! In the Chicago area, I never pay a buck a pound for yellow onions. Ever. They have gone up but almost two bucks a pound? Sounds like a ripoff. This isn't the best time of year for onions; next month the price should drop as spring plantings mature; but still, that's insanely expensive.

White onions are usually up to double the cost of yellow onions, and 2.39 versus 1.88 isn't that bad.

I buy most of my produce at a local market, as opposed to a megastore, and the prices are very reliably lower overall. Next week they'll be selling 3 lb bags of white onions for $1.39.

[BuelahWitch]

16. Well this store had several things I wanted on sale

And I wasn't going to waste gas or have my frozen food melt by going to another store. At least it is a HUGE onion. Better be good...

[bookworm65t]

19. where do you live?

I am in SW Ohio, and onions run no more than a dollar.

[BuelahWitch]

21. Lawrence, KS

I don't remember them being this high when I lived in Utah either, but those were pre-GWB days.

[Orrex]

22. You should have bought organic

It would have cost more, and it would have been all wrinkled and wilted, but isn't that half of the fun?

[MiddleFingerMom]

23. Tucson (same as Kali)...

.
...and lately, I've been paying $1.00/lb for Vidalias.
.
As well as $1.00/lb for Roma tomatoes (and this week on-the-vine, too).
.
We had quarts of these HUGE beautiful strawberries for 88 cents at a
chain supermarket -- figured they'd be tasteless or bitter, but they
were AWESOME!!!
.

[JoDog]

24. Well, it is still out of season

Even if a local gardener overwintered onions (planted them in the fall and let them sleep through the winter), they still would not be available for harvest until about early to mid summer at the earliest in most of the country. Therefore, your onion was either imported from South America or trucked in from Florida or California. Which tacks on cost.

Onions are also more delicate than potatoes, hence why the tubers, while also out of season, cost so much less. If my own garden is any kind of measure, potatoes are also easier to grow than onions, so there are better economics of scale. Also remember that most grocery store buyers have beauty standards for all produce. It is my understanding that the standards are lower for potatoes than onions, so more onions are thrown on the reject pile, thus raising the cost of what winds up in the store.

Your best bet for saving money on this type of produce is purchasing a lot when you find a low price, then storing it either whole in a part of your house with a cool, controlled temperature (the old root cellar idea), or chopping it up and then freezing or drying it.

I hope your casserole is awesome!

[SoCalDem]

25. If you have a patch of dirt, plant your own

They are super easy to grow..same with tomatoes, cukes, green beans & zucchini.. and even watermelons:)

[HopeHoops]

26. We grow a lot of them during the summer. Onion sets are CHEAP!

Damn are they good, too.