Tuesday 03-05-2022 - 17:06

BidFood has provided a recent statement on the current supply of sunflower oil. 

 

"The war in Ukraine has led to major disruption of the food supply chain. Ukraine and Russia produce most of the world’s sunflower oil and so supply is likely to be exhausted over the coming days/weeks with some of our suppliers already reporting supply issues. Therefore, it could be necessary to substitute sunflower oil in certain products to alternative vegetable oils such as refined rapeseed oil or palm oil.

Sunflower oil is used as an ingredient in many food products such as crisps, breaded fish, breaded chicken, frozen chips, biscuits, cakes, cereal bars etc.

For Own Brand products switching to alternative vegetable oils, Bidfood will, in liaison with our Trading Standards Primary Authority (TSO), follow the BRC and FSA guidance in relation to labelling and notification of changes whilst ensuring a pragmatic and proportionate approach is taken which will be on a product by product basis depending on the manufacturing site capabilities. Branded product suppliers are expected to follow a similar approach:

 

• When a substitution involves an allergen, a label change reflecting the substitution will be required.

 

• For products where sunflower oil is a feature of the product, for example, it is included in the product name or there is a claim about sunflower oil etc. (e.g. “crisps fried in sunflower oil”), then a business decision will be made so as to not be misleading. This could involve ink-jetting the words ‘Rapeseed Oil’ onto the label or over stickering, depending upon manufacturing site capabilities.

 

• For all other substitutions, in order to keep the products on sale, whilst our preference would be to also ink-jet the words ‘Rapeseed Oil’ onto the label or over sticker, this might not always be the case. However, the product name will be changed on Bidfood Direct to reflect the type of vegetable oil used (e.g. Everyday Favourites Ready Salted Crisps (sunflower oil temporarily substituted with rapeseed oil), but note that the ingredients list may still state sunflower oil.

So that we can inform our customers as quickly as possible of any substituted sunflower oil, the product name will be changed on Bidfood Direct as detailed above and a list of affected products will be available on our website. Telesales will also have the list if customers have any questions about the products they are purchasing.

The list here shows all products (branded and Own Brand) which are currently affected by the sunflower oil shortages. This list will be updated and shared on a weekly basis, but customers are encouraged to contact our Bidfood Advice Centre on 0370 3663 000 if they have any questions."

 

Our Trading Support Team are conscious that the possible increase in the use of palm oil will be an ethical concern to unions, and we are resolved to keep members updated on this issue.