The world’s cooking-oil supply is facing an unprecedented shortage as the Ukraine war cuts off a crucial supplier. Here’s how 6 countries are handling the strain

The global cooking-oil supply is taking a hit from the war in Ukraine, and it’s being felt all over the world, from Indonesian markets to fish-and-chips shops in the UK.

Russia and Ukraine collectively export close to two-thirds of the world’s sunflower oil, a main ingredient in many packaged and prepared foods, which has made finding sunflower and other vegetable oils more difficult, putting more pressure on a market already strained by extreme weather and droughts.

International consumers are struggling to stock up or find replacements: Shelves in Spain are empty, consumers in India are buying in bulk, and grocery stores in the UK have limited the number of bottles people can buy.

The cooking-oil market was further rocked when Indonesia, which normally exports more palm oil than any country in the world, decided to ban sending palm oil abroad in response to shortаges of edible oils at home. The ramifications aren’t only global — palm oil is Indonesia’s top export.

If you can find cooking oil, the price has gone up. The UN’s FAO Food Price Index, which tracks the prices of five commodity groups, hit an all-time high in March, with cooking oil prices rising faster than cereals, dairy, meat, or sugar. In April, the index was down slightly from the prior month’s record.

One fish-and-chips shop owner in northwest England told Insider that his monthly expenses for cooking oil alone have risen by more than £500 (or $617) since Russia invaded Ukraine.

With the world’s supply under duress, the things people buy, cook, and eat in restaurants are affected. The sting is sharper for food-industry workers or lower-income groups struggling to make ends meet.

Insider reporters from around the world detailed what a shortage of cooking oil looks like on the ground in the US, UK, Indonesia, Germany, the Netherlands, and India.

The US isn’t heavily reliant on palm oil — it uses other types of cooking oils such as soybean oil (found in margarine, shortenings, and many other products like salad dressings) and canola, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an online platform used to predict and explain future economic growth. In fact, the US imported 4.76 MMT (million metric ton) barrels of oil per day, with canola oil dominating the imports in 2021.

Consumers are likely to see prices fluctuate overall because of climate events in other countries that could impact oil imports. For example, drought in South America has caused soybean prices to rise, leading oil prices at grocery stores to increase.

After Indonesia said it was banning palm-oil exports, prices initially jumped 7% but later eased after it was reported Indonesia was only banning bulk and packaged RBD palm olein — a more processed type of oil, typically used for industrial frying. Soybean and canola oils are more commonly used for frying in the US.

After the ban, JPMorgan researchers Tracey Allen and Ruhani Aggarwal wrote in an April note that “we see a sustained environment of elevated food prices for at least over the next 12 to 18 months, possibly longer given the duration of conflict in Ukraine.”

“Extreme uncertainty and elevated prices” will continue to impact oil production and imports, they added.

The uncertainty in the palm-oil market, coupled with climate disasters such as drought in Argentina and Canada, has sent soybean prices in the US soaring — prices are predicted to increase between 8.5 and 11.5% in 2022, per the US Department of Agriculture. Argentina, Brazil, and the US are the biggest producers of soybean oil.

Canada, the world’s biggest canola-oil exporter, will likely use less acreage for oilseed cultivation this year despite increased demand for the commodity, a Bloomberg survey of eight analysts found, as drought fears and high fertilizer prices have farmers shifting to wheat and soybeans.

JPMorgan’s Allen and Aggarwal said the Indonesia palm-oil ban “is yet another reminder of the vulnerability across the agricultural supply chain in an environment of already tight inventories.”

British fish-and-chips shops are raising prices and bulk ordering supplies. Costs were already steadily increasing before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent prices soaring. Then cooking oil, a main ingredient for chips shops, took a hit.

Andrew Crook, owner of Skippers fish-and-chips shops in Lancashire in northwest England, told Insider that the cost of sunflower oil had gone up around 50% in roughly three weeks.

Crook – who also serves as president of the National Federation of Fish Friers – said that shops, including his own, were stocking up in anticipation of continued price hikes and limited supplies.

Crook said he paid £30 per 20-litre drum of oil before Russia invaded Ukraine. Now he pays £44. In a typical week he said he uses around 10 drums, putting his overall costs at roughly £140 higher per week, or £560 per month.

With high demand pushing up the prices of other oils, some shops are instead turning to tech for solutions. Crook has a machine that helps assess if oil can be reused, and he is also looking into tablets and catalytic converters that clean oil as it fries.

“If it’s gonna run out, we need to preserve the stocks we’ve got,” Crook said.

It’s not just oil that’s getting more expensive. Crook said prices were going up “across the board,” with the cost of fish doubling and potatoes set to soar because of rising fertilizer and fuel costs.

Jeff Cansdale, who owns Finn’s Traditional Fish and Chips in Reading, which is 20 minutes by train from central London, told Insider his store had had to raise prices by 30% after rising costs squeezed its margins.

“This has a huge impact on a small business like mine,” Cansdale said. “I imagine we have a very tight six to 12 months.”

Crook has also put prices up and said he’d have to do this again soon. He said that the price of sunflower oil wouldn’t dip significantly anytime soon because of the extent of the damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure.

“I really do worry that this knock-on effect will likely last for a few years,” Cansdale said.

Prior to Indonesia’s ban on palm-oil exports, the panic in surrounding cooking-oil shortages in the country had become so intense that two locals reportedly died while waiting to buy some.

In mid-March, a 41-year-old housewife named Sandra fainted while waiting under the hot sun for more than an hour for a minimart to open, according to the South China Morning Post. She suffered from asthma and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, the outlet said, citing the police.

In the same week, 49-year-old Rita Riyani fell unconscious after lining up at three different supermarkets to buy cooking oil due to a sales cap. She died after being in intensive care for two days, police told local media.

Since the start of the year, pictures of long lines and empty supermarket shelves across Indonesia have regularly made headlines as shoppers tried to hoard cooking oil amid a shortage.

Even though Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of crude palm oil, the material for the cooking oil most favored by locals, the shortages there illustrate the delicate nature of global supply chains.

In March, Indonesia’s former president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, questioned why home cooks could not avoid using oil in their cooking as the country faced shortages.

“Do ladies just fry their food every day? To the point that they’re fighting about cooking oil?” she said during a webinar, per Al Jazeera. “Is there no way to boil or steam or make (Indonesian fruit salad) rujak?”

The demand for cooking oil remained high leading up to the holy month of Ramadan in April, when Muslims break their daily fast with feasts. The month is then followed by the religious holiday Eid al-Fitr in May, when there is an increased demand for cooking oil to make fried treats.

German restaurants also are struggling with higher cooking-oil prices. In April, the famous pub Gaffel am Dom in Cologne said it would take french fries off its menu due to a sunflower-oil shortage.

A supplier stepped in with an alternative: beef tallow, or rendered beef fat, which gives Belgian fries their famous flavor. (Lard is rendered pork fat.)  The dish stayed, but the new Belgian-style fries were no longer vegetarian.

A spokeswoman for McDonald’s Germany said the company will reduce the amount of sunflower oil in the oil blend it uses for frying. The company told Insider in March that McDonald’s customers can still get fries “in the usual quality.”

Meanwhile, bottles of sunflower oil have been out of stock for weeks in German supermarkets.

Rapeseed oil, which can stand in for sunflower oil, is also hard to find locally, a spokesperson for the Association of Oilseed Processing Industries (Ovid) said.

Germany has 1 million hectares for growing rapeseed, but the problem persists. Contributing factors include individual hoarding of cooking oil and fewer Ukrainian truck drivers staffing the logistics companies that get the bottles to store shelves, according to Ovid.

The Netherlands is the largest importer of Ukrainian sunflower oil in the European Union, importing about 600 million euros worth last year.

The sunflower-oil shortage has hit many Dutch snack bars and cafés that sell fries and popular fried snacks, such as croquettes, which are typically fried in an oil blend that’s mostly sunflower oil.

Mark Kok, a product manager at snack producer Oma Bobs, says that mix has changed — in makeup and in price.

“Because sunflower oil comes from Ukraine it is difficult to get and if you can get your hands on it, it is very expensive. Rapeseed oil is a decent alternative,” Kok said.

Mustafa Elnali, owner of snackbar the Twins in Amsterdam, says that he now pays 26 euro per 10 liters of frying oil, up from about 15 euro per 10 liters before Russia invaded Ukraine. The price increase costs him more than 100 euros extra each week. He also saw his gas bill almost double since the start of the war.

As a result, he needs to raise prices. He is eyeing a 30-cent raise, to 2.60 euros, at a time when the cost of a croquette is already 13% more expensive than a year ago.

“There is a shortage of everything and everything is more expensive. Fats for the croquette rose 100% in price, meat is 40% more expensive, and packaging costs 60% more. That is why we have to raise prices,” Kok said.

In India, high edible-oil prices are impacting all citizens, and low-income households bear the brunt of it. They are spending a big chunk of their incomes on essential items, especially on edible oils, whose prices have increased by 50 to 70% above pre-COVID levels.

A survey conducted by a community social-media platform, LocalsCircle, found that 24% of Indian households have cut their oil consumption, while 67% are paying more for it by reducing spending and savings.

A Mumbai-based woman told that when her WhatsApp group alerted her to potential shortages, she bought double her usual monthly supply of cooking oil.

The rise in prices of edible oil is forcing some poor and middle-class families to opt for cheaper and low-quality oils, which could lead to health risks.

Some Indian street-food purveyors are steaming their food instead of frying to cut back on palm oil, according to a Bloomberg report.

Tags: sunflower oil, vegetable oils, export, Indonesia, UK, global, cooking oil, rapeseed oil, Market, Ukraine, markets, Russia, supply