Branded edible oil reaches only a few retailers, prices up as stocks fall

With hotels and food processing units still shut, and with labour and logistics hiccups, edible oil availability in April has been 1.5 million tonnes as against the usual 2 million tonnes

Even as production of packaged cooking oil continues uninterrupted, edible oil players are finding it hard to reach consumers at the retail level. 

From not enough workers to pick up stock from distributors and transport grinding to a halt to dearth of packaging material, several factors have contributed to the essential commodity not reaching retail store shelves, forcing consumers to buy inferior variants.

“Only 20-25 per cent retailers are being reached. To a large extent, issues around supply chain from factory to the distributor have been addressed. Distributors aren’t able to find enough labourers to take the product to the retail stores.