Waitrose ‘tearless’ onions to go on sale in the UK for the first time
Cooks are to be able to buy “tearless” onions for the first time when they go on sale in the UK in January.
Crying in the kitchen has become a thing of the past as Waitrose is exclusively launching a variety of sweet onion that doesn’t reduce cooks to tears.
Sunions® are the first tearless and sweet onion variety, ideal for those with sensitive eyes or when cooking with children in the kitchen. The mild flavour makes them perfect for use in cooking while they can also be used raw in a salad.
Paul Bidwell, Onion Buyer at Waitrose comments: “We understand how a-peeling tearless onions are to our customers which is why we’re delighted to launch Sunions in selected stores and via Waitrose.com from 18th January. Ideal for taking the tears out of the kitchen, the sweetness of this type of onion lends itself perfectly to a variety of dishes, from salads to hot meals.”
The onions are the invention of Rick Watson, a plant breeder working for the German chemical company BASF. He began working on the innovation in the late 1980s, using natural techniques rather than genetic modification to create the unique variety.
The brand said it took more than 30 years of breeding less pungent varieties of onion to find a variety where the vapours released on chopping are not powerful enough to bring tears to the eye.
A three-pack of Sunions will cost £1.50, 30p more than a four-pack of Waitrose’s own-brand onions.
