The boss of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey Britain’s warned yeaterday that food supplies faced an 'apocalyptic' shock from the war in Ukraine, with shortages of cooking oil hitting British supermarkets.

Over 11% of the UK’s cooking oil imports last year came from Ukraine, leading to the prospect of shortages if the country cannot export its goods. While Britain imports relatively small amounts of Ukrainian wheat, a shortage would risk a severe knock-on effect on global prices.

He went on, “Two things the [Ukrainian] finance minister said is that there is food in store but they can’t get it out. While he was optimistic about crop planting, as a major supplier of wheat and cooking oil he said we have no way of shipping it out and that is getting worse. It is a major worry for this country and a major worry for the developing world.”

Howver, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told Sky News today, 'I was surprised to see that kind of terminology there, particularly in light of the fact that obviously food supplies are for supermarkets.

“Food supplies are already bought a long way in advance so supermarkets are placing orders for many, many months down the line...and they’re working on today’s prices and what they’re buying for today is what we will be seeing in supermarkets in the period ahead.”

(sources: https://www.standard.co.uk/, https://news.sky.com/, image: pexels)