top set onion bulb sales - how do you do it?

[templeton]

Not sure this is the correct topic area, but here goes.
I've grown lots of topset onion onions, and have quite a few bulbils set aside. Not sure if there is a market for these in Aust, but if I were to offer them, a few questions:
Do i dry them down? lots of them are beginning to develop short green tops.
Sell by weight, or number?
Price?
Packaging for transport/post?

cheers,
T

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I often put top-set onion bulbils on the table at the farmer's market. The easiest way for me to deal with them is to put them in pint berry baskets: A few years ago I acquired some thousands of berry baskets so that's easy for me... Then I dump the onions into a paper bag if someone buys them so that I can reuse the basket.

I put them in the baskets in whatever shape they happen to be in: Green the first week, dried down if I have to take them back a second time.

I have created my own niche market for them, because the first few times I brought them they just sat there, terrifying the customers. Maybe 1 person in 50 would be able to identify them. They are not among the top sellers, but a few people look for them each week. I think I was pricing them around $1 to $2 per basket, so taking them as a courtesy and not for profit.

If you are going to be posting them, then I'd recommend packaging in paper, cloth, cardboard, or mesh so that they can breathe. In that case, they would need to be dried down first. I think you could ask significantly higher prices by mail-order than at the farmer's market.

Around here we sell by the bag, or the package, or the handful, or the each: Anything other than weight.

It would be difficult to me to market them by each, since they come in so many different sizes.

I market them for the taste: Robust flavor without the sting that is so common in onions. Asians seem more familiar with them and more likely to seek them out and to come back for more.

[richardw]

Have you thought of selling on Ebay T?,i'm thinking of seeing how my red onion bulbils go selling a NZ online auction called Trademe