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Comment by eightturn | Hacker News Reader

author here : ) happy to answer questions if you have any. We also have a twitter account here if you want to follow along: https://x.com/vidaliaonions

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I live in a mountain valley in Mallorca where hundreds of tons of perfect Canoneta oranges fall to the floor and rot each year because the cost of picking them outweighs their market value. The valley became wealthy from this fruit in the 19th century but the economics no longer add up. [0]

At the same time the price of orange juice (elsewhere) has skyrocketed [1], yet this rural community seems unable to take advantage.

What would you do?

[0] https://ruralhotelsmallorca.com/guides/The-History-of-Soller... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c397n3jl3z8o

I was shocked by this in rural Spain as well. Just tons of high citrus and olives rotting on trees because their harvest can't be done mechanically.

I'm sure I've seen video of oranges being harvested mechanically. I'm sure it can be done but probably not economically everywhere especially if the terrain is difficult. For mechanical olive harvesting see: https://ilcircolo.eu/olive-harvesting-by-hand-or-with-machin...

Orange farms are on flat land and all the trees are on a grid and trimmed to exact sizes

That may be true of modern farms elsewhere but is not the case for historical groves here. They are sometimes spaced appropriately but that's about it. Usually on vehicular-inaccessible mountainside terraces.

You have Mr. Kraus making sorbet and selling that on the internet, don’t you? Though I guess he doesn’t come close to using up all of the supply… and his domain name is a bit more complicated than what Peter usually goes for. I can’t, to this day, remember how to pronounce Sòller. We keep asking the locals every time we visit. Do you own a grove yourself?

Not familiar with Mr Kraus. Shortcut to remembering how to pronounce Sòller is to say 'So yeah'. We're surrounded by scarcely-maintained groves with owners pleading to do something with the fruit and there's only so many marmalades (wrong kind of oranges) or Aperol copycats one can make. Orange blossom ice cream a big success this year.

Fet a Sòller. The guy is a German who noticed the same problem in the 90s and figured to use the surplus for making ice cream & marketing it to the Vitamin C starved people in Germany.

Perhaps an artisanal single-origin soda could work? Use the pulp and the oil from the peels to make some form of syrup or concentrate locally. Mix it with water and label it in Hamburg, London, Stockholm.

Can you ask your neighbors if they’ll sell an all you-can-pick pass in Febrary? I know two families who would buy it in an instant. There's an email address in my bio here.

In fact, I think I haven't met a tourist on the island who wasn't interested when I told them that we visited a grove and picked some oranges. Especially those with kids! Someone could set up a website that allows you to buy such a pass that directly routes you to the appropriate grove. You can spread the word about that website by collaborating with small local businesses like car rentals, hotels, Airbnbs, etc.. I’m sure many of them would be delighted to put such a flyer into their welcome kit.

I tend to avoid projects where the economics are challenging, or where the demand has fallen off. Vidalia is unique because it's a boutique item, not a commodity. Because of it's unique nature, we're able to charge premium pricing, allowing us to stay in business (& even at our premium prices, the margins are razor thin, so we're constantly watching bottom line). While I tremendously enjoy this project, this is not an easy business to operate.

Do they let anyone pick for free ?

Plenty of orange trees in public places, plenty of abandoned groves around and a handful of eco-fincas where you can pick for next to nothing.

Got some addresses? I know Ecovinyassa, but they don’t let you pick.

How tough is it juice them and make orange juice that can be sold (to Spanish or EU standards)? I would think you could start small and grow over time.

Mallorca is a mountainous island in the middle of the med. Exporting something from Mallorca seems like a logistical challenge to me. Exporting something refrigerated or frozen, even more so...

Maybe store-shelf product such as gummies or something?

Fresh juice takes 2kg of oranges per ~1l/~1kg. Plus electricity and handling costs...

Still, you'll need a large multiplier on the transformation process: organic EU orange are 1.7€/kg, standard are 1€ wholesale market price (meaning its origin is continental spain or italy I guess). Frozen orange juice is 3.93€ (Brazil)

I think the best bet for juice would be to export frozen concentrate.

And despite the logistical challenges you cite, lemons imported from places like Argentina are now cheaper to buy at Palma's wholesale market than the average wholesale price paid for local fruit, which has subsequently plummeted even further.

Except that lemons are picked for "cheap" in Argentina (and oranges in Morrocco or Valencia), industrially packaged to ports (most likely to BCN or VLC ports) and then shipped in containers to Palma.

Pick the oranges in the middle of the island: not cheap, as stated. Squeeze & freeze the juice (likely around Palma): not cheap, not even including transportation. Ship them back to the continent: probably not cheap either.

Transshipment is extremely costly and even more so at a smaller scale, and that's what we're comtemplating here.

There was a company in Mallorca that tried something similar with lemons about 12 years ago: Pep Lemon. I remember hearing that they noticed huge amounts of lemons lying unused all over the island and wanted to do something worthwhile with them.

They stopped production in 2019, citing a “lack of investors.” During their operation, they were involved in a legal dispute with PepsiCo over the use of the name Pep. I’m not sure whether this was because of their cola product, Pep Cola, or simply due to the similarity of the brand names. Pep is a diminutive of Josep in Catalan and is very common, so it may have been just a coincidence. They tried to export their products, but this turned out to be expensive, so they instead hoped for strong local support within Mallorca (see point 1 below). In that article they say that they produced 1000 bottles a year in their factory. That sounds very little; I wonder if that is correct?

1) News that they are on the verge of closing: https://ib3.org/pep-lemon-liquidara-lempresa-a-final-dany-si...

2) YouTube video attached to the news article, see 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXEsIbSkWQU

3) News that they are closing: https://ib3.org/pep-lemon-tanca-les-portes-definitivament

The story of soft drinks on the island is astonishing. 130 drinks companies at one point. My understanding is that Coca Cola took over distribution for the countless small companies and - once embedded - said we don't need your product any more, adios. Don't know if true but a tale often told here.

How would you market such a business in 2026? I am from an Italian region where farmer grow many special coltures, and I was always a bit surprised why they don’t try selling on the internet. I ended up convincing myself it is not a viable business model.

I'd still lean into a great .com domain, as it still gives you instant credibility. Also leverage Facebook, as my typical buyer hangs out there a good bit. YouTube has been helpful as well, as we try to share "behind the curtain" what life is like as a Vidalia farmer.

I live in Sweden, and almost every year I discover someone I work with or have friends in common with, who has a friend or relative in Italy, or Greece who farms oranges/olives/cheese or what have you. And this friend in Sweden is selling their produce by word of mouth.

So once a year at harvest, the relative has someone drives a truck full of olive oil 2000 kilometers north, and dozens of Swedes turn up at an appointed time on a Tuesday afternoon in a parking lot to pick up their order of six bottles of oil. The prices are no better than in the supermarket, but ostensibly you’d get a high quality product.

It’s a funny way to do business in 2025, completely without Internet infrastructure. Somehow, I don’t think it would work as a web shop.

There is a lot of “paperwork” to do it as a web shop, if you know what I mean.

I’m sure taxes are part of it, but keep in mind it’s a toll free union after all. They could easily do this above board and just declare the Italian VAT as they do selling to locals.

I think for food products there are more considerations, like labeling and traceability.

If the Greek farmer is selling in Greece then all that is already done.

Exactly, you'll have to declare VAT

I know it does for a small Dutch setup :) https://www.kalamatakarma.com/ Marketing is still completely word of mouth afaik, but the webshop makes it easier for total strangers to tag along.

we also film a lot of the growing process here: https://www.youtube.com/@vidaliaonion

Is your website accessible over the onion network by Tor?

the only tor joke I have: https://x.com/searchbound/status/1263578735724433408?s=20

Perfect opportunity for you to get your site on Tor then!

Is anyone really getting into trouble growing Vidalia onions not in Georgia?

Like if I plant some in my yard and start selling them online or at the local farmers market, what is anyone really going to do?

Seems kinda weird they have a government granted monopoly on them.

It's a brand name, like any other. Usage of it requires fulfilling the brand requirements. It's like how you can't say a burger from Burger King if it's actually from McDonalds, even if it's a very similar hamburger.

But even then, this isn't uncommon for food and beverages. You can't call it "whisky" unless you follow certain requirements about the mash bill, barrel, etc.

(My dad, before his death, had started growing "Pennsylvania Simply Sweet" onions. Because you can't call them Vidalia.)

It’s more than a brand name (civil matter), it’s a federally protected designation (criminal matter):

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-IX/p...

I didn’t know this until this thread! Thanks for the citation.

There are a lot of food and drink items with official legal definitions that include the region of origin. The most famous one is champagne, which can only be called champagne if it comes from a specific region.

You can think of the name as being inclusive of the region, not simply descriptive of the variety. So if someone made a sparkling wine in a different region and sold it as champagne then they would be committing fraud.

> Like if I plant some in my yard and start selling them online or at the local farmers market, what is anyone really going to do?

At your farmer’s market? Probably nothing. But if you came across a particularly grumpy person with time and money to burn on lawyers they would have a case against you. Not actually going to happen at that scale. But if you owned vidaliaonions.com and started selling fraudulent vidalia onions at scale, the farmers would likely get together and pursue legal action to protect their prices.

It’s almost like a brand. You can sell LEGO-style bricks but you can’t call them LEGO because they didn’t come from the LEGO company.

> You can think of the name as being inclusive of the region, not simply descriptive of the variety.

The term of art is terroir [1], which is the "character" of the environment the plants are grown in. It's often that a region will have some special characteristic due to geology that allows a unique flavor profile to grow so these trade names are the equivalent of a terroir brand.

Some designations are more strict than others, though. IIRC in the case of Vidalia onions the soil is low in sulfur so the biochemical pathways in onions that produce astringent compounds are nutrient starved. As far as I know most sweet onion varieties nowadays are grown in similar soil, but they're not legally allowed to call them Vidalias.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir

The geology-centered conception of terroir in wine that you're giving is actually rather controversial and not generally supported by any science we've done to date.

For wine, "terroir" rather encompasses things like climate, local customs and practices (viticulture and vinification), and sometimes things like local strains of grapes or of yeast.

If you grow them in the Vidalia region (20 counties around Vidalia, GA), you're aok... but if you grow them outside of that area, and call them a Vidalia, you'll get into hot water. The law mainly came into existence cause Texas farmers began growing regular yellow onions and slapping the 'Vidalia' name on it, and customers would get pissed. So all the Vidalia farmers got together and got a Federal law passed that says you can only call an onion a 'Vidalia' if it's grown in our special region down here where we have sandy, loamy soil that contributes to the mild, sweet taste.

It’s only Vidalia if it’s grown in the Vidalia region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling onion.

Yeah thanksfully in Europe we have AOP / AOC (protected name of origin) so that names can have a meaning. Good that Vidalia farmers seem to have managed to do the same somehow.

Regarding Champagne, the funniest part is that Russia granted exclusivity of the name to some local sparkling wine, such that actual wines from the Champagne aera need to use some alternative names there ^^

It's similar to French wines and cheese. News to me that we have this in the US but it totally makes sense. We have a few of these in the PNW, like Hermiston melons and Walla Walla onions.

It's a broader EU thing (named AOP - protected designation of origin) rather than French only, though you are right that France has plenty of those for wines and cheese. But it's also protecting Greek Feta, Italian Parma ham, Scottish Shetland Wool, etc

Nürnberger Rostbratwürstchen and Munich Beer come to my mind from Germany!

Huge fan here! I read the article when it was new and was enamored with the story. I ordered a small box. The onions were terrific. So I order a large box every year.

Just curious do you make a living primarily from this or is it more just a side income?

I run a few projects that support me; this is one of them. This project did allow us to buy another neat domain, though: onions.com (used profit from one season to purchase)

I guess my question is: why is this better for me the customer than just buying them at my local supermarket? The shipping must make them very expensive, relative to my store. Are they that much better onions?

most grocers don't carry Vidalias. If they do, they sometimes mislabel them, so you don't know whether you're receiving an authentic Vidalia. Also, grocers often charge more than we do - we had a customer from California one year mention that they found some out there for $8-$10 a pound (our 10# box is $50, and that includes shipping to lower 48 usa).

Interesting. Maybe I’m just lucky, I’m in northeast Ohio and we have them regularly.

But $5/lb including shipping is not bad at all for something from the internet.

just came here to say that this has been one of my favorite pieces of writing i came across on hn ever (i read it back in 19)

appreciate that, phl.

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