“The disruption of this ubiquitous ingredient will cause further strain on America’s food system,” he said.
And price increases “will exacerbate the difficult cost environment that U.S. firms have been contending with for the last 12 months,” Katie Denis, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Brands Association, said in a report this month.
Other countries are feeling the pinch: Ukraine’s primary export markets last 12 months included India, China, the Middle East and North Africa, and the European Union, in keeping with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Rema 1000, a Norwegian supermarket chain, is considering a return to selling palm oil, which it had previously banned for environmental reasons, and its Danish affiliate has limited shoppers to 3 bottles of oil.
But that approach might be aggravated by an Indonesian ban on its palm oil exports, weather-related global shortages and the tightness out there from the war, Oil World, an industry analyst group, said in a report on Wednesday.
In Norway, Christopher Harlem, the chief executive of the importer Harlem Food, said some European firms were meeting demand — for now — by dipping into their stored supplies of sunflower oil.
“In some unspecified time in the future, more oil won’t be added to the storages,” he said. “I cannot pay money for any sunflower oil in the meanwhile, not at any volume that counts.”
He added, “I believe we now have to face there may be an upcoming shortage ahead, no doubt, and begin fascinated with adaptation and replacements.”
Henrik Pryser Libell contributed reporting.
