Tightening global supplies of crude oil and vegetable oils are continuing to drive steep food inflation.

The University of Missouri’s Ben Brown says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up the price of crude oil and limited the region’s sunflower oil exports, causing large price hikes for cooking oils…

“We’ve seen vegetable oil prices trade at their highest prices ever,” he said. “We’re trading at 83 cents a pound when just five months ago we were trading in the 20 to 30 cent range per pound.”

July soybean oil futures closed at $.8472 per pound Wednesday, roughly a cent below the all-time contract high.

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