Nearly a month after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the economic effects of the conflict are being felt across the globe. The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday April 19 revised its global growth forecasts for 2022, now at 3.6%, against 4.4% in January. For France, the expected growth is reduced to 2.9%, against 3.5% at the start of the year. In French businesses, the war also had first consequences on the prices or availability of certain products. This is the case of sunflower oil.
“Two-thirds of French sunflower imports come from Ukraine, mainly for the manufacture of oil and meal for animal feed”, according to the NGO Foodwatch. Since mid-winter, the price of sunflower oil has increased by 25 to 30%, according to journalist Olivier Dauvers, a specialist in mass distribution. “We are starting to see a lot of empty or poorly filled shelves, he delivers to franceinfo. In one out of two cases, there is either a problem of rupture or rationing that has been implemented.”
In Reunion, to limit precautionary purchases, the E.Leclerc brand does not sell more than three bottles per checkout. In France, the Metro brand, which supplies professionals, has set up a maximum of 50 liters per customer per day. According to’National Association of Food Industries, Sunflower Oil, “rare today”will be “almost absent within three to four months”. “Our stocks go until June”said the E.Leclerc group.
Restaurant owners and food manufacturers are particularly affected. A chip shop in the Ardennes has done the accounts: “The 25-litre can of 33 euros has gone to 110 euros…” A manufacturer of chips from Oise also says that he has seen the price of the 1,000 liter tank jump. “At the beginning of 2021, it was at 1,100 euros, today we are at 3,600 euros”, according to So Chips. By carryover effect, rapeseed oil is more and more popular, to the point of starting to run out in turn. Restaurateurs have also chosen to turn to beef fat, which is much less expensive. Others have already raised a la carte prices.
Faced with this beginning of shortage, manufacturers have asked the authorities for derogations to sell “revisited” products without changing the labels. “Changing the labeling takes a long time and the products could no longer be offered for sale in the meantime”, defended a source in the distribution sector, in early April, to AFP. Puff pastry usually made with sunflower oil could thus be marketed with the addition of rapeseed oil, without changing the packaging.
If Foodwatch says understand “the exceptional nature of the situation”the NGO estimates that “consumers should be aware of these ingredient changes”. She started a petition “demanding total transparency”via information “in spokes” some stores “and online, for each product in a transparent way and without delay”. A government source assured AFP that a “work” was going on about it.