Edible Oil Production Dropped By 40% Due To Coronavirus

Adani wilmar, an edible oil company, said on Saturday that the current lockdown saw a 40 percent drop in its edible oil production as a result of labour shortage, resulting in reduced supply of this essential commodity. Adani Wilmar deputy CEO Angshu Mallick said the closure of all hotels, restaurants and cafeterias due to the lockdown to control Covid-19 has also led to a 25 percent drop in the sale of edible oils.

Adani wilmar has a market share of 20 percent in the packaged food oil segment. Mallick said, “We used to process and produce about 8,000 tonnes of edible oil per day, but production has come down by about 40 percent due to shortage of labourers.” He said that a large number of migrant labourers have returned to their ancestral places, while locals are not willing to work for fear of getting infected by the disease. Seeing the lockdown, Adani Wilmer has partnered with Swiggy for home delivery of foods. The country’s edible oil demand is 230 lakh tonnes per annum, while in 2018-19 vegetable oil imports grew by 3.5 percent to 155.5 lakh tonnes. 

The company with about 25 processing plants in various states of the country, is transporting edible oil through trucks as more labourers are required to send goods from the railways. Mallick said, “demand has also come down by 25 percent”. He said that supply will be less due to decrease in production against demand.                                                                                                                             

No rise in retail prices 

When asked about the price situation, he said the company will not increase retail prices after the lockdown, although wages and freight costs might increase. He said that harvesting of mustard crop in states like Rajasthan will increase from next week, which will boost domestic production. On being asked about the demand for other food items, Mallick said that sales of branded wheat flour, broken basmati rice, pulses, gram flour and soybean have increased.

In India total case rises to 7,447; death toll rises to 239

The number of people infected with corona in the world has reached to 16,19,944 and the death toll has crossed one lakh. At the same time, after the number of 1035 cases reported in India in the last 24 hours, the number of people affected by Covid-19 has increased to 7,447. At the same time, 40 people have died due to corona in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll of the Covid-19 epidemic to 239. Total number of people recovered in India is 643.