Sunions will provide an alternative for families cooking up Christmas feasts
Waitrose is restocking tearless onions for the festive season.
The Sunions variety, from BASF Nunhems, is returning to Waitrose as part of its No 1 brand, and will be available from early December.
Sunions was originally launched in the UK in 2022, following more than three decades of conventional breeding by BASF’s vegetable seeds business, and was heralded as a breakthrough in vegetable innovation.
“Whether it is in the kitchen or around the Monopoly board, nobody wants tears at Christmas,” said Naz Ahmed, UK customer marketing manager at BASF Nunhems. “Onions are a key ingredient throughout the festive season, adding depth of flavour to nearly every savoury dish from soup and stuffing to gravy and chutney.
”But for too long, cooks and chefs creating these culinary masterpieces have paid a price. That’s changing, thanks to Sunions.”
Unlike conventional varieties that maintain their strength in storage, Sunions mellow and sweeten over time, Ahmed noted. When cooked, they have a very similar flavour profile to other brown varieties.
The variety is being supplied by Lincolnshire grower Moulton Bulb. “Despite four decades in the family business, I still can’t cut a regular onion without shedding a tear,” said Moulton Bulb’s director Robert Oldershaw. “That’s why Sunions have been such a hit – sales grew by over 30 per cent last year.”
Harvested in July, it takes at least four months for Sunions to develop their tearless quality. Moulton Bulb thoroughly tests the produce before it heads to the supermarkets.
“We routinely measure the pyruvic acid content, the biochemical marker of onion pungency,” Oldershaw explained. “With Sunions, we also conduct blind tests where panellists cut up various varieties, hold them to their eyes and inhale to see whether they make them cry. We won’t release Sunions to retailers until they pass these tests.”
