First, it was the coronavirus that disrupted the order of things in our world. Then came the shortage of palm oil from Indonesia. Now, Russia’s war with Ukraine has disrupted food supply chains to the point we now have a shortage of cooking oil.
Without a doubt, global cooking oil prices have been rising since the covid-19 pandemic began for multiple reasons, from poor harvests in South America to virus-related labor shortages and steadily increasing demand from the biofuel industry.
Ukraine was supplying half of the world’s sunflower oil, with Russia supplying another 25 percent of the oil. However, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, production has all but stopped, reports the New York Times.
This interruption of shipments is just the latest fallout from Russia’s war and has sent cooking oil prices soaring sky-high globally. This means that many nations are dealing with shortages of cooking oil and what they have left is now so expensive that shoppers, most recently in Britain, are being limited in their purchases of cooking oils, as supermarkets and restaurants adjust to the climbing costs.
“Supply chains, already disrupted by Covid-19, have been further complicated by the war in Ukraine, which is causing shortages in some ingredients like sunflower oil and raising the price of substitute ingredients,” said Kate Halliwell, the chief scientific officer of the Food and Drink Federation, which represents Britain’s largest manufacturing sector.
Russia has already banned the export of sunflower seeds until the end of August – aimed at stabilizing domestic prices for agricultural produce. “With sharp growth in global prices for sunflower oil and oilseeds, there is currently increased demand for the Russian product,” Russia’s agriculture ministry said in a statement.
Supermarket chains in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, and other nations have limited cooking oil purchases, sometimes describing the moves as precautions in the face of increased demand, according to local news outlets.
One offshoot of the cooking oil shortage reported by Arkansas Online – Kenya’s main power company warned that thieves are draining toxic fluid from electrical transformers and reselling it as cooking oil.
“We will just have to boil everything now, the days of the frying pan are gone,” said Glaudina Nyoni, scanning prices in a supermarket in Harare, Zimbabwe, where vegetable oil costs have almost doubled since the outbreak of the war. A 2-liter bottle now costs up to $9.
Prices could moderate by this fall when farmers in the Northern Hemisphere harvest corn, soybeans, and other crops, said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
But there’s always the danger of bad weather, especially with climate change. Last year, drought pummeled Canada’s canola crop and Brazil’s soybean crop, while heavy rains affected palm oil production in Malaysia.
