Annually Belizeans consume 4 point 6 million pounds of onions - that's a lot of onions, but lately there's been an acute and persistent shortage. We first reported on it in December when the Marketing Board sent out a release assuring Belizeans that they had received a large shipment of onions from Mexico. Well we don't know how large that shipment was but apparently it wasn't enough because over the weekend just about everywhere ran out of onions. The places that did have - were charging as much as $5 a pound - for a product that's usually sold for just over a dollar a pound. It may have cut into your escabeche dinner on new years day, but Keith Swift today found out how onion has home-makers and restaurant owners crying in more ways than one.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This morning 7NEWS went to the Queen's Square Market in search of onions. And whether we asked for onions or cebolla- we got one answer.
[Vendors Saying There Are No Onions]
And vendors Luis Aldana and Anna Uh says it's been that way for a while.
Anna Uh: All those people beg for onion but no onion is there.
Keith Swift: How much do you sell the onions for?
Anna Uh: $2.50
Keith Swift: And how much did it use to be?
Anna Uh: $1.25 a pound.
Keith Swift: So it has doubled.
Anna Uh: Yes. My customers complain a lot. They 'cuss and all.
p>Luis Aldana: Onions are very scarce right now. It is very expensive. The last time I got onions was last week.
Keith Swift: How much were you selling a pound for?
Luis Aldana: $3.50, that is very expensive.
Keith Swift: How is this affecting your business?
Luis Aldana: It is not affecting me because it is affecting the people who consume it.
He is talking about consumers like Sheena Segura. This morning she went to the market to buy ingredients to make an onion sauce. She found all the trappings - except the onion.
Sheena Segura: I haven't found any. I haven't gotten the onions and it will play a big part in what I'll make but I haven't found any.
Keith Swift: What are you going to make?
Sheena Segura: Onion sauce.
Keith Swift: How will you make that without onions?
Sheen Segura: Haven't gotten any onions. I think the 'chiney' around my house will have.
It is lunch time here at Marlin's Restaurant. Escabeche is usually on the menu
but today it isn't. In fact - it hasn't been on the menu for a while now.
Douglas Young, Marlin's Restaurant
"We can't make escabeche because we don't have onions and then with the other foods we have to shorten the onions used. When we go to some of the shops it is $3 a pound they are asking for."
Keith Swift,
What do you tell customers?
Douglas Young,
"Well when they come and ask for escabeche I tell them they can't get it because I don't have onions. Even when they ask for the pepper sauce, they ask for the onion sauce and I can't give them the onion sauce because we can't get the onions"
Keith Swift,
So this is affecting your business.
Douglas Young,
"Yes, a lot."
Escabeche has also been scratched off the menu at Zoila Huanaquita's diner in the Queen's Square Market.
Zoila Huanaquita: We don't have anything with onion. It is two expensive, like $3.50 a pound.
Keith Swift: You normally cook Escabeche right?
Zoila Huanaquita: We did it in the past but not today.
One restaurant which had escabeche is Neri's and Ian Pickwood says that with the prices and scarcity - it almost didn't make it on the menu.
Ian Pickwood, Neri's Restaurant
"We have the escabeche and thing but a lot of things, for example the onion sauce and thing, we are really short of and if you get understand, we went to the market and stuff this morning and they didn't have out there and if you do get, the prices are high."
But perhaps Osmel Durantes said it best. We met him in Marlin's Restaurant having lunch this afternoon. He likes his onions and he likes his onion sauce. For him - his lunch wasn't the same without his onions.
Osmel Durantes,
"It doesn't have the same taste because as you see it is only pepper now. It is only onion and it has a different taste to the food."
Vendors at the market have been told that they will get onions tomorrow. Harvesting of Belize's crop begins at the end of the this month and it continues onto August. Belize grows about 3.1 million pounds of onions. The Marketing Board is solely authorized to import onions to meet the demand as and when local supplies are depleted. Reports indicate that the free flow of contraband have kept the supply of onions available for affordable prices in the north and west.
