Soybean oil still pricey as supply remains elusive

Supply of branded bottled soybean oil still remains disrupted, allowing fake companies to capitalise on the situation.

Meanwhile, rice and broiler chicken prices increased further last week, battering the consumers.

Rice prices are higher amid the peak Aman harvesting season. It is now the peak season and newer rice varieties are being supplied in the market.

But in the meantime, the wholesale and retail prices of rice have increased again.

Meanwhile, soybean oil supply has not normalised. The government has increased price of soybean oil by Tk8.0 a litre to Tk175.

Eleven days have passed since then, but supply of soybean oil in the market has not normalised, said consumers and grocers.

Most of the grocers the FE has interviewed said distributors have not provided them with bottled soybean oil from companies like Teer, Rupchanda, Fresh, Pushti, Bashundhara, and others.

Bottled soybean oil was not available in most of the shops in various markets and neighbourhoods of the capital on Friday.

And a kind of anarchy is going on with loose soybean oil. Traders are taking the price of loose soybean oil as they wish.

Some traders are selling loose soybean oil at Tk185-190 a kg against the government fixed maximum price of Tk157.

Again, counterfeit bottled oil has also been seen being sold at a price of Tk190 per litre, up to Tk15 more than the price fixed by the government.

Humayun Ali, a grocer at Hazaribagh, told the FE that companies are selling bottled soybean oil in the market but have stopped supplying it.

Even after increasing the price, they are not supplying the oil, and some traders are cashing in by selling bottled oil in different names at Tk190 a liter.

Except for a few big shops, oil at official rate is not available.

Most shops do not have branded bottled soybean oil and many have oil of fake companies.

The FE found groceries at Hazaribagh, Rayerbazar, Sankar-Jafrabad, Mohammadpur, and parts of Dhanmondi were selling bottled oil named 'Rupali Ilish' and 'Need' at Tk190 per litre.

They said a cooperative named 'Consent Multipurpose' at the Hazaribagh Park area is supplying bottles of soybean oil to them.

Visiting the Park area on Friday morning, the FE couldn't find out any multipurpose cooperative of the same name.

Farid Hossain, an employee of a grocery at West Dhanmondi, said some distributors might be involved in the fake trade with their old stocks.

Asked, the Director of National Consumer Rights Protection, Mohammed Alim Akhter Khan, told the FE that their six teams are monitoring the market but he has no idea about such fake companies.

"We will send teams on a priority basis to bring such fake companies to book," he said.

Md Alamin, a distributor at Mohammadpur in the city, also said mainstream companies who supply edible oil now place demand for buying their other products like flour, semolina, pulses, sugar and even aromatic rice mandatorily.

"We have been held hostage in a way," he said.

Meanwhile, Gias Uddin, a rice trader in the capital's Rayerbazar, said that price of rice per 50 kg sack has increased from Tk100 to Tk 200 in the last one week.

As a result, price of rice at the retail level also has increased by Tk2.0 to Tk 4.0 a kg.

Among them, price of coarse rice guti swarna, hybrid has increased by Tk 2.0 to Tk 55-56, medium swarna-5, BRRI dhan 28 and Paijam variety to Tk65-68 and finer to Tk72-88 a kg during this peak Aman harvesting season.

After remaining stable for several weeks, price of broiler chicken has suddenly increased by Tk 20 a kg, selling at Tk200 to Tk 210 a kg as on Friday.

Retailers said that the supply of chicken has decreased in Kaptan Bazar, Dhaka's largest wholesale market, since Wednesday night.

Due to this, the price is increasing.

However, Pakistani and Sonali chicken is being sold at the previous price of Tk 320-Tk 340 a kg.

Onion prices declined further last week as it is now available at Tk 60-Tk 100 a kg from Tk 110-140 a kg two weeks back thanks to a rise in supply of newly harvested 'Murikata' variety.

Prices of potato have also come down. Price of newly-harvested potato has declined to Tk60 from Tk 80-110 a kg thanks to the abundance of new harvests.

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