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The cost had already rocketed even before Vladimir Putin’s invasion, but now vegetable oil goes for £1.30 a litre at the supermarket, up 23p, or 22%, on a year ago. Sunflower oil – of which Ukraine and Russia are major producers – is up sharply too, by 17p to £1.34 a litre, according to NielsenIQ Scantrack data.
Yawar Khan, who owns Akash Tandoori in Wallington in south London, says last month a 20-litre drum of vegetable oil cost about £22 at the cash-and-carry, but today the price is closer to £40. Buyers have also been limited to two drums each, in a sign of concerns about shortages.
Ukraine and Russia account for about 60% of world production of sunflower oil, and the conflict has hit supplies hard. In UK stores sunflower oil is about a fifth of the market by value and 44% by volume, according to NielsenIQ.
The price of sunflower oil jumped 60% after the invasion of Ukraine, from £1,130 per tonne in February to over £1,800 in March, according to analysts at Mintec.
Ukraine has been unable to export 10m tonnes of sunflower seed (4m tonnes of sunflower oil) during the crisis.
“The big impact in the UK and EU has been on rapeseed oil – as you can imagine, prices went absolutely crazy.”
