India is a country that has developed considerably in recent years. This is also noticeable in the onion sector, which has always been strong in India. “online retail can be seen increasing significantly in recent years, and pre-packed products will play a large role in that,” says Michiel Eilander of Manter. Because of this increase and the high export, the country will also start automating a lot in the coming years.

Manter sells weighing and packing machinery throughout the world, and they can also be found in India. “In India, we work with Allround India, they represent us on the market,” Michiel says. “We’ve seen interesting developments there in recent years. In Western Europe, the market developed gradually. The onions were placed in crates in shops at first, so you could take them out of these to weigh them. The bags with pre-packed potatoes and onions followed. That was an interesting development for us, because our machinery plays an important role in that.”

“More and more supermarkets can be seen opening their doors now in India. At first, a lot was still sold on markets. A lot of supermarket chains in the online business, like Reliance, Walmart, Bigbasket and Amazon, are now arriving on that market in addition to existing Indian retailers. You’d therefore think market developments are the same in India, but that isn’t the case. online retail is booming on the Indian market. The Indian economy is developing so quickly, a lot of people no longer have the time to go to a supermarket. The large cities becoming congested also means it takes a long time to go to a supermarket.The middle class is growing enormously. The products are stored centrally before being distributed. The shopping is then delivered to the consumers’ homes. India skips a few steps, as it were, because of this. Perhaps they’ll even overtake us in this regard.” The trend for retail has now been around for about two years, the automation followed half a year later.

Quality
Cleaned, sorted and packed products play a large part within online retail. “There’s a lot of demand for packed onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic and similar products. However, the quality of the packed products has to be completely 100%, because consumers buy the product without seeing it first. Lower quality leads to complaints and more work, so it’s important quality is perfect,” Michiel continues.

Automation
“Wages are low in India, but labour costs don’t compensate for automation costs. This is mostly due to the large volumes they handle. Demand for the machines has increased exponentially. One of the retailers, for instance, has indicated they want to quadruple production capacity within a few years. We work with Allround India to this end. They produce machines for sorting and inspecting products including onions, and we connect to that, as it were. This way, they can offer a complete range to their customers.”

The quality of the Indian onions can’t be compared to the European onions. “The Indian onions are completely different from the European ones: they’re small, disc-shaped and very dry, resulting in a lot of skins that need to be removed before they enter the packing machine. They’re grown under completely different circumstances as well. They grow different varieties and these also look different from each other. They do, however, also have an enormous focus on quality. This is both because they export a lot, but also because retail puts a lot of emphasis on it. They can’t afford quality problems in the packaging,” Michiel explains.

Besides online retail, the export to Southeastern Asia is an important market for Indian onions as well. “Traditionally, India is a major producer of onions. They mostly export onions to Southeastern Asia, such as Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. This influences automation as well, for they export both small and large packaging. Because of this major export, processors will be automating a lot as well,” Michiel concludes.