No tears, no taste? Naturally bred tearless onions sparks debate

“Tearless” onions have made it to New Zealand, now being grown in Auckland and sold nationwide.

Woolworths New Zealand launched its Happy Chop tearless brown onions to stores on June 16, marketing the new product as “an onion designed for everyone who loves the flavour but not the tears”.

Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan tried the onions live on air, chopping one up, holding it close to her face, and even testing it on her tastebuds.

“If you love your onion taste, I don’t think this is a winner,” du Plessis-Allan said.

While the naturally crossbred variety will be new to Kiwi shoppers, the world’s first tearless onions were developed in Canterbury by a group of New Zealand and Japanese agricultural researchers in 2007.

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Scientists who worked with Dommisse at Crop & Food used gene-silencing techniques for their research.

Gene silencing works to effectively “turn off” a gene – in the tearless onions case, the one responsible for the enzyme that makes you cry when slicing onions.

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