A part of the Spanish agri-food industry will remain for sunflower oil, used to make a multitude of products, from pastries and preserves to sauces and fried foods, and whose reserves will not last more than a month.
The war in Ukraine has stopped activity in the refineries of that country, from which Spain receives 62% of the sunflower oil it uses, ships do not circulate through the Bosphorus Strait and only the oil that was in stock remains.
He has expressed to Efe Rubén Moreno, general director of Produlce, an association that represents companies in the sweets, cookies and pastry sector and to which Bimbo, Gullón or Nestlé belong, among many others.
“We already have stocks at the limit and within a couple of weeks the earliest companies will have run out of sunflower oil and within a maximum period of four weeks all the companies,” Moreno added.
Sectors against the ropes
In the same sense, representatives of the Spanish Association of Manufacturers of Canned Vegetables (Agrucón) have stated as well as the Secretary General of the National Association of Manufacturers of Canned Fish (Anfaco-Cecopesca), Juan Vieites, who has affirmed that the shortage is a matter of three weeks or a month at the most.
In supermarkets, the limitation of its sale and its price increase, as denounced by some organizations, have been the first evidence of the implications that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has for this product and for the consumer. But soon the alarm has also gone off about its impact on the industry, which needs this wholesale input.
According to a study by olive oil consultant Juan Vilar, a year in Spain 193,200 tons of sunflower oil are consumed within the home, while 186,800 tons are destined for industrial, hotel and restaurant use. The sector is trying to import oil from other countries, in addition to reformulating the products.
Will it lack olive oil?
For the Anfaco companies, which already have part of their production based on olive oil, resorting to this fat does not solve the problem either, among other things, according to Vieites, because “little is already being supplied and it is also increasing Price”.
According to the consultant Vilar, 190,000 tons of olive oil go to the agri-food industry every year in Spain and 347,000 tons are destined for consumption in homes.
This analyst has warned that if the situation in Ukraine continues, and is added to a poor olive oil production forecast for this campaign, this product could also suffer from shortages.
However, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Luis Planas, has assured that the “stock” of olive oil allows to give peace of mind and security that it will not be lacking.
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