Spain runs the risk of exhausting its reserves in four weeks if it does not find a substitute for this product
A part of the Spanish agri-food industry will be paralyzed in four weeks if a substitute is not found sunflower oil, which is used for making both pastries and preserves, as well as sauces and fried foods. The reserves, warn from this sector, will not last more than a month. The problem is that the war in Ukraine has halted activity in the country’s refineries, and more than 60% of the sunflower oil that Spain receives comes from there. Between that, and the fact that the ships do not circulate through the Bosphorus Strait, only the oil that was in stock remains.
The shortage “is imminent”, the general director of produce, Ruben Moreno. This association represents companies in the sweets, biscuits and pastry sector and brings together companies as well known as bimbo, Gullon or Nestle, among other. “We already have the ‘stocks’ to 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 [lo harán] all companies”, Moreno has abounded.
Along the same lines, representatives of the Spanish Association of Canned Vegetable Manufacturers (agrucon), as well as the general secretary of the National Association of Canned Fish Manufacturers (Anfaco-Cecopesca), John Vieiteswho has assured that the shortage is a matter of three weeks or a month.
“Deep Concern”
Where this deficit has first been noticed has been in supermarkets. The empty bottles of sunflower oil on the shelves, the limitations on its sale and even the price increases denounced by some organizations, have been the first signs of the impact that the conflict in Ukraine may have on the product.
However, the alarm soon also went off about the potential impact on the industry, which needs this good for the frying in restaurants and in ‘snack’ companies, for the pastry makingand for the transformation and canning of food and sauces, among others.
According to a study by the olive consultant Juan Villar to which Efe has had access, per year they are consumed in Spain 193,200 tons of sunflower oil inside the home, and are intended 186,800 tons for industrial, hotel and restaurant use. “We are deeply concerned,” said the general secretary of Anfaco-Cecopesca, who also detailed that companies in the sector employ 98,000 tons of vegetable oils each year, 44% of which is olive oil and the rest sunflower oil.
Looking for more oil
Now, both they and the rest of the industrial sectors are looking against the clock for new sources from which to obtain sunflower oil – they are studying Argentina, Brazil or South Africafor example–while trying to develop new formulations for their recipes with other types of oil.
In this sense, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAPA) has highlighted that Spain has the world’s largest production of olive oil and that this can mitigate the situation of shortage of sunflower oil. Despite this, for the industry this type of oil is not a fully valid equivalent. “Unfortunately, we [el aceite de oliva] it doesn’t work for us, it doesn’t have the ideal characteristics to be a sunflower substitute, starting with the flavour, which is much stronger and is not neutral,” Moreno pointed out.
The Produlce companies are looking more towards other oils that are very much in the minority in Spain, such as coconutthe one of rape or the one of palm. Specifically, the research and development departments of the companies that are part of this association work to develop new recipes with these oils with the idea of achieving a product that is as similar as possible to the original.
But even to overcome this hurdle, companies would have to face another series of challenges. According to Moreno, once these producers manage to come up with new formulas, they will have to modify the labeling of their product to reflect these changes, which will most likely generate a new “bottleneck” : There will be neither designers, nor printers, nor enough plastic material to do something like this in such a short time, argues the general director of Produlce.
Risk of shortage of olive oil?
For the Anfaco companies, which already use the olive oil For part of its production, resorting to this fat does not solve the problem either, among other things, Vieites has indicated, because it is also beginning to show signs of scarcity and because the price is already beginning to rise. In this case, again according to the consultant Vilar, the Spanish agri-food industry consumes 190,000 tons of olive oil each year and households, 347,000 tons.
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This analyst has warned that if the situation in Ukraine continues, and this is added to a poor production forecast of olive oil for this campaign, the shortage could also be transferred to this product. However, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, louis planeshas ensured that the ‘stock’ of olive oil is enough to be calm and sure that it will not be missing.
Vieites, however, has indicated that they have asked the authorities to review the regulations relating to tariffs to import of certain countries, as well as those of pesticides and phytosanitary. In this way they could buy sunflower oil from origins that are now impossible because they do not meet the required requirements.