Oils under price pressure

By: Szalai László Date: 2023. 03. 02. 15:33

Sunflower oil’s dominance continues in the cooking oil market.

Hungary produces enough sunflower seed, so we don’t need to worry about supply problems. Currently there is a HUF 720/litre price cap on the product – in January this price was approximately HUF 500-600 lower than the market price would be.

Dr. Imre Tímár
managing director
Tanner Trade

Dr Imre Tímár, managing director of Tanner Trade Kft.:

“The volume of other cooking oils (coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil) is growing from year to year, but unfortunately the same is true for their prices, which limits their sales performance. Due to the extremely hot summer and rising transportation, packaging and other costs, olive oils became 30-40% more expensive by the end of last year.”

They mix it

Once again different blended products have appeared on stores shelves, mixing olive oil with sunflower oil for a lower price. Dr Tímár thinks these blended products will disappear from the market once prices return to normal. Volume sales of private label olive oils are growing. There is no price cap on cold-pressed sunflower oils, so these are more and more expensive in comparison with refined cooking oil. With other types of cold-pressed oil, the problem is the rapidly increasing ingredient prices.

Sooner or later, obstacles to the (literally) healthy development of the market will be removed

Marianna Pinczés
managing director
Virgin Oil Press

Marianna Pinczés, managing director of Virgin Oil Press Kft.:

“We could only purchase certain Hungarian-grown seeds (e.g. rosehip seed, sea buckthorn seed) at the old prices, but these are only used to make special oils for which demand is steady and doesn’t grow. Ingredient prices and production costs are rising so fast that basically we should increase the price of every product, but this is impossible to do instantly because retailers would object.”

New flavoured products from the Spanish olive oil brand

Tanner Trade has been distributing olive oils for 15 years. Its top product is Spanish brand ABACO, which was established in 1840 and is exported to 70 countries. Hungarian shoppers can choose from ABACO ExtraVirgin, flavoured Extra Virgin, BIO Extra Virgin and Pomace products in stores. The latest ABACO innovations are 250ml flavoured olive oils in picante, lemon, truffle, and thyme-garlic variants. 200ml ABACO extra virgin olive oil sprays are also very popular.

Virgin Oil Press is mainly considered to be a grape seed oil maker in the domestic market (their brand is called Grapoila), but they are already making oils from 20 different types of seed, and they also produce gluten-free flours, seed spreads and natural cosmetics in a zero waste fashion. Last year upon the request of Eisberg, the company put the Eastern Style Oil Mix and a Roasted Pumpkin Seed Oil on the market, both of which were rewarded with the Great Taste star on the international stage. This year Virgin Oil Press will launch a product that represents the new generation of fruit shots: fruit and vegetable purées mixed with cold-pressed oils (Fruit&Oil Together – FROT), in 3 flavours. //

Olive oil: bad olive harvest can result in olive oil shortage in the United Kingdom

According to Walter Zanre, managing director of Filippo Berio UK, because of the hot and dry summer in 2022 the olive yield was very low in Spain, the world’s biggest grower. Estimation is that 750,000 tonnes of olives were missing from processing companies at the end of last year, which represents 50% of the usual annual production. In Italy production volume had dropped 40% and wholesale prices skyrocketed because of this. The managing director predicts an olive oil shortage by the last quarter of 2023. What makes the situation even worse is that there aren’t enough glass bottles available because of the war in Ukraine. //

Source: The Grocer

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2023.2-3.