Organic Onions from Piet van Andel

Who's behind it

Piet van Andel has an organic arable farm in Zeewolde, on the clay soil of Flevoland. The onion is central: yellow and red seed onions, grown organically in open ground. Together with the Twisk partnership he's been farming since 1995, and besides their own harvest the business also markets onions from fifteen other growers.

In 2015, Van Andel built his own storage and sorting facility. There's space for over 9,000 tonnes of onion, some 5,000 tonnes in cooled, conditioned rooms with condensation drying. Two sorting lines handle different sizes and packaging. The operation runs on solar energy, after the business switched from gas to green electricity.

Why this onion

You get one organic onion, all year round, from the same grower. Thanks to the farm's own storage, the onion stays available in late spring, when many kitchens switch to imports. Flavour and origin stay the same all season.

Flevoland clay gives a firm onion with a full flavour. It peels clean, keeps well in your mise en place and holds its shape when you confit it slowly. The yellow is your workhorse for stock, soup and confit bases. The red is milder and sweeter, for raw use and pickling.

In your kitchen

Put the onion on the plate as a vegetable, as a whole roasted onion or a plate of slowly confited onions.

Put the origin on the menu: organic, Zeewolde, the same grower all year. Yellow onion, red onion and red beetroot all come from one address in Flevoland, so your sourcing stays short.