‘Cost price rise biggest problem for food industry'

The availability of raw materials is less of a problem for the Dutch food industry than price increases. Only the availability of sunflower oil is a bottleneck. There are problems with price increases on several cost components (energy, raw materials), which cannot be carried by companies for a long time. This is what researchers from Wageningen Economic Research write in their 'Bottleneck analysis conflict Ukraine' for the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

Dairy, the flour industry (including potato starch) and other potato processing industries are major consumers of energy and therefore sensitive to sharp increases in the energy price.

Bakeries in particular face price problem

Especially bakeries have a price problem. Electricity, gas and fuel surcharges are playing tricks on them. Where energy used to be a small part of the cost price, it is now comparable in percentage to flour. Retailers are not unwilling to pass on the costs, but they are wary of how the additional costs will be divided up within the chain. Most bakers do not import much from the Ukraine and are therefore mainly affected by the price increase on the world market.

Feed

The Netherlands mainly imports feed grains, maize and oil seeds (especially sunflower seeds) from the Ukraine, partly GMO-free/organic. The GMO-free stream (particularly important for the organic sector) is difficult to replace in an alternative way; this leads to higher feed costs and possible shortages due to the short-term lack of alternatives.

Read the report 'Bottleneck analysis conflict Ukraine’ (Dutch only)