Tearless onions distributed by Moulton Bulb Company ahead of Waitrose release

The days of red eyes and crying while cooking could be over as a revolutionary food product hits the shelves.

Tearless onions - coined ‘Sunions’ - have rolled out across the UK this week, with a South Holland business playing a major role in the scheme.

Moulton Bulb Company was contacted by German chemical business BASF a couple of years ago to discuss the possibility of marketing the vegetables - which were originally released in the USA.

Moulton Bulb director Robert Oldershaw jumped at the chance to get involved.

“Fruit and vegetables, and particularly onions, are not considered the most sexy or innovative,” he said.

“Onions are a staple product that everybody buys, and it’s just a normal part of the shopping basket.

“The fact we’ve got something that’s gone global is pretty exciting.”

The tearless onions are imported to Moulton after being grown in Spain; they can’t be manufactured in the UK due to unsuitable soil type, climate and day length.

Mr Oldershaw says the science behind the roll-out is very interesting.

“There’s nothing in them as such - it’s more what’s not in them, or what’s reduced in them,” he said.

“They’ve been produced through normal, lateral plant breeding processes, and that’s the reason it’s taken around 30 years to develop the variety.

“They’re not genetically modified. Basically, it’s to do with the strength of the onion. They are considerably milder than a standard British-grown onion.

“The compound within the onion that makes you cry, which comes about once the cells are broken when you cut them, there’s less of that.

“So hence, they don’t make you cry.”

The business has been in Mr Oldershaw’s family for three generations, with his grandfather the first to set it up.

They grow standard Lincolnshire crops such as potatoes, wheat and ordinary onions - and they have been packing the latter for over 40 years.

Tearless onions grow at the same rate as their tear-inducing counterparts, but there are some minor alterations in the way they are produced.

“The only difference is that we need to leave them in storage for a period of about four to five months,” Mr Oldershaw said.

“These onions were harvested in July along with the rest of the Spanish crops, but we leave them in storage which gives them the opportunity for the tearlessness to develop - or, more accurately, the pungency to reduce.”

Supermarket giants Waitrose will be exclusively selling the tearless onions during their first year in the UK. Depending on their popularity, they could be rolled out to more shops further down the line.

“We’ll see how things go for future years,” Mr Oldershaw added.

“If it doesn’t catch on with consumers after the interest we’ve had, nothing will.”