Liquid gold: The price of cooking oil (BBC)
BBC published a podcast about what rising vegetable oil prices mean for food businesses. Vegetable oil can make or break a food business. In the food industry, they rely on vegetable oil. Senior research fellow David Laborde explained that since oil is a tenth of our calorie intake, making it the most important food source after cereals, oil is the first and best step toward nutrition diversity through vitamins and lipid fats. The global market is made up of four main oils, sunflower, canola, palm oil, and soybean oil. “Laborde explained, “Over the past two years oils have more than doubled and with the Ukraine war, three-quarters of the world market of sunflower oil means price hike and nearly impossible to get. Other oil markets have tried to make up for the lack of sunflower oil, but in South America, the weather has caused problems for soybean crops; South East Asia has had typhoons, but also restrictions for farm workers (due to COVID) making it difficult to harvest crops. In some countries like Indonesia, they have chosen to cut exports of palm oil.” Laborde also said, “We have a combination of climate shocks, political shock, and conflict, and the consequences of economic shocks due to COVID-19, and all of these are aspects of why the global markets are what they are and prices are high. All oils remain high–twice what they used to be. It is true that we’ve seen a price reduction, but still, they are not as cheap as they were in the past.” Laborde said in terms of future scenarios, “We have seen the worst of it. Any good or bad news from Ukraine will have a consequence. Keep an eye on the weather, and we’ll have an idea what it means for the vegetable oil markets.”