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Gloucestershire Business News

Recipes to change for crisp and oven chips as UK faces sunflower oil shortage

The taste of crisps, oven chips and cereal bars are set to change soon, as brands rethink their recipes amid an oil shortage caused by the war in Ukraine.

Bottler of cooking oil for UK retailers, Edible Oils told the BBC it only had a few weeks left of sunflower oil stock.

Ukraine and Russia are said to supply 80 per cent of the world's supply, and the conflict has caused major issues with importing the ingredient into the UK.

Kim Matthews, commercial director at Edible Oils, told the BBC: "From a UK consumer perspective, sunflower oil is the biggest oil. It's used more than anything else. It's a fast-moving situation.

"We're still trying to see if we can get some more but it's looking very tight."

Edible Oils added that the shortage could last more than a year.

Mr Matthews added: "At the moment, Ukrainian farmers should be sowing the seeds now for harvest in October and November. Clearly, that's not going to happen... we're probably going to miss the season so we could be impacted for 12-18 months."

The shortage is forcing manufacturers of crisps, chips and cereal bars to change their recipes and replace sunflower oil with refined rapeseed oil.

In a warning to consumers, The Food Standards Agency said: "The majority of the UK's sunflower oil comes from Ukraine and food businesses here are reporting that supplies of sunflower oil are likely to run out in a few weeks with some businesses already experiencing severe difficulties.

"This has led to some food manufacturers urgently replacing sunflower oil with refined rapeseed oil before being able to make the change on the label.

"We are therefore advising that food products labelled as containing sunflower oil may have instead been produced using refined rapeseed oil and consumers should look out for additional information being provided by retailers and manufacturers to stay informed."

Other products that usually contain sunflower oil include mayonnaise, bread and biscuits.

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