Canola demand stable

Conventional wisdom would suggest the one agricultural commodity that could be most impacted by COVID-19 is high oleic canola oil. The product made its name in the food sector as a replacement for partially hydrogenated soybean oil in restaurant fryers. The foodservice industry has been decimated by COVID-19. Statistics Canada reports that two-thirds of Canada’s restaurant workforce are out of work. There are a lot fewer people munching on french fries these days. So wouldn’t that result in vastly reduced demand for high oleic canola oil? The answer is yes and no, said Tyler Groeneveld, Corteva Agriscience’s commercial grains and oils leader for North America. “You are seeing less frying oil used and it’s very significant obviously, as only pick-up or drive-through alternatives are available for people right now,” he said. However, the idea that high oleic canola oil is only sold to the foodservice sector is an outdated notion. “In the last years we diversified quite a bit into ...