Ukraine war makes Europe tense about cooking oil

Sunflower fields next to an oil refinery in Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine – Photo: AP

“Supply chains, already disrupted by COVID-19, have been further complicated by the war in Ukraine causing shortages of some raw materials such as sunflower oil and increasing prices of substitutes.” , Mrs. Kate Halliwell – a senior officer at the British Food and Beverage Federation – talks about the broad impact of rising sunflower oil prices.

Sunflower oil is one of the few cooking oil The most used plant in the world.

Before the conflict, Ukraine was the world’s largest exporter of sunflower oil, with Russia accounting for about 75% of global sunflower oil. The conflict has crippled harvesting, transportation and exports.

This puts many countries with limited cooking oil reserves under stress and pushes up world cooking oil prices.

The UK imports 83% of sunflower oil from Ukraine, and with an unknown situation of how long the hostilities will last, many places have asked buyers to “restraint and be flexible in their needs”.

However, for the major food producers in the UK, the lack of sunflower oil is no easy feat. Some businesses are in serious trouble while others believe that Britain’s sunflower oil supplies are only a few weeks away.

Some companies accept to switch to canola oil to ensure production is not affected. The conversion was so hasty that the product packaging was still sunflower oil but was actually canola oil, according to the report. New York Times.

The Food Standards Agency was forced to issue a notice to reassure people that canola oil is safe and the risk of allergies is “very low”. This oil was previously used mainly for the production of biofuels.

Notice board limiting the amount of cooking oil customers can buy at a supermarket in the UK – Photo: AP

At the retail consumer level, many supermarkets have limited the amount of cooking oil each person can buy to avoid hoarding as happened with toilet paper in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic.

At British supermarket chain Tesco, customers are only allowed to buy up to three bottles of cooking oil “so others can get what they need”, according to a notice posted by supermarket management on store shelves.

Tom Holder, a spokesman for the British Retail Consortium, said some members of the retail association had imposed purchase limits on customers shortly after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, leading to concerns about supply disruptions.

Some supermarkets in Spain, Greece, Turkey and Belgium interpreted the quantity restriction as a precautionary measure, fearing that people would rush to stock up on cooking oil when prices soar.

Harry Niazi, the owner of the famous Olley’s Fish Experience restaurant in London, is in a dilemma. He said the price of a 20-litre can of sunflower oil had risen to £42.5 from around £22 before the conflict broke out in UKraine.

“This is really, really scary, and I don’t know how the fish and chip shops will cope,” Niazi told The Associated Press.