Brits race to snap up sunflower oil as shops place limits: Restaurants face shortage of cooking oil
Supermarkets across the UK have placed limits on how much cooking oil customers can buy due to supply-chain problems caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Tesco is allowed three items per customer while Waitrose and Morrisons have placed limits of just two items each.
The British Retail Consortium’s Tom Holder said the move was a temporary measure “to ensure availability for everyone”.
Restaurants and other establishment may also face a shortage, it was reported.
Sunflower
Most of the UK’s sunflower oil comes from Ukraine, with the restrictions applying to that product as well as olive and rapeseed oils at some supermarkets.
Holder said retailers were “working with suppliers to ramp up production of alternative cooking oils, to minimise the impact on consumers”.
Recent data showed cooking oil was one of a range of food staples to have its price shoot up.
The price of cooking oils and fats went up 7 per cent nd is nearly a quarter more expensive than a year ago, the Office for National Statistics said on April 13.
The Russian tanks and missiles besieging Ukraine are also threatening the food supply and livelihoods of people in Europe, Africa and Asia who rely on the vast, fertile farmlands of the Black Sea region known as the “breadbasket of the world.