Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the onion marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consumption. Here is a quick look at what happened during the year...

The 2025/26 program aimed to increase domestic consumption by inspiring more people to use Australian Onions more often. The strategy positioned onions as the starting point that creates the flavour foundation for everyday meals.

The program focused on two priorities:

• Building awareness and a stronger emotional connection with the flavour of onions.
• Showing more ways to use onions across everyday meal occasions.  

Activity included brand ambassador and creator content, paid and owned social media, public relations and in-store sampling.

Insights that drove our thinking  

• A staple, but not yet loved: Onions were present in most Australian households, but only 27 per cent of consumers described them as something they loved to eat, creating an opportunity to build a stronger emotional connection.

• Light buyers were the growth audience: Half of onion buyers were light buyers and purchased onions about six times a year, compared with around 28 times for heavy buyers.

• Prompting matters: Unprompted intention to buy onions was 22 per cent and increased to 50 per cent when consumers were prompted. Of those planning to buy, around three quarters went on to purchase.

• Dinner was the key occasion: Almost all onion buyers used onions at dinner, while lunch use was much lower. Everyday recipes could provide more reasons and occasions to use onions.

• Taste and versatility were strong foundations: Onions were considered easy to cook, reliable for taste and versatile. Recipes and elevating home-cooked meals were important purchase drivers, while already having enough onions or not needing them were the main barriers. 

What did the campaign achieve?  

Built awareness and inspiration through social media  

Paid advertising across Facebook and Instagram reached 2.3 million people and delivered 8.4 million online impressions (the number of times campaign content was displayed to people) by April 2026.  

TikTok helped us connect with younger audiences, reaching 554,000 people and delivering 2.7 million impressions. Creator content showed new and versatile ways to use onions. Videos from Mary Kalifatidis, Kayla LaManna and Dezi Cooks each achieved more than one million views, with Mary’s Creamy Baked Onions content generating especially strong viewing time, saves and engagement.

Generated national media coverage  

A Valentine’s Day media moment used a live cooking segment with brand ambassador Mary Kalifatidis to demonstrate Australian Onions as a versatile ingredient in everyday meals. The activity generated 19.8 million opportunities to view the coverage across The Morning Show, 7NEWS.com.au and New Idea. The campaign showed that combining a timely media idea with ambassador-led social content could extend both reach and engagement.

Inspired purchase through in-store sampling  

The first summer sampling burst ran from 30 January to 31 March 2026 across 130 Woolworths, Coles and independent stores. It delivered 11,240 samples and reached 14,871 shoppers. Of shoppers engaged by the team, 76 per cent tried a sample and 61 per cent of samplers purchased onions. Shopper research found 85 per cent agreed they better understood how to prepare onions and 82 per cent felt inspired to include onions in meals more often. Reported sales estimates were based on field staff manual counts.