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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Marita Moloney

Tesco Ireland responds over fears Irish stores could follow UK lead in rationing key food product

Tesco Ireland has responded after stores in the UK moved to limit the amount of cooking oil customers can purchase.

Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons and Iceland have warned shoppers across the pond that people can only buy a certain number of these products due to shortages.

The shortages have been attributed to the war in Ukraine disrupting supplies of sunflower oil to the UK.

READ MORE: Irish shoppers urged to bin sweet treats and other products being recalled from Dunnes Stores, Tesco and Lidl

Tesco has limited the number of cooking oil products that people can buy to three bottles.

The move has prompted concern in Ireland that a similar measure might be implemented in Irish Tesco stores.

However, while there are currently no purchase limits in place for customers, the retailer is said to be keeping a close eye on stock levels.

A Tesco Ireland spokesperson told RTE: "We currently have no customer purchase limits on cooking oils but we are monitoring stock levels daily. We encourage customers not to alter their normal purchasing habits."

In recent days, UK retailers have been voicing their concern over cooking oil stock levels.

Tesco UK said in a statement earlier this week: "We have good availability of cooking oils in stores and online. If a customer is unable to find their preferred oil, we have plenty of alternatives to choose from.

"To make sure all of our customers can continue to get what they need, we've introduced a temporary buying limit of three items per customer on products from our cooking oil range."

Meanwhile, Iceland supermarkets are limiting customers to just one bottle of cooking oil.

Tom Holder from the British Retail Consortium said "the war in Ukraine has disrupted supplies of sunflower oil to the UK".

“Some retailers have introduced limits on the number of bottles customers can buy as a temporary measure to ensure availability for everyone," he explained.

“Where sunflower oil exists as an ingredient in products, retailers will be substituting it with other safe oils, such as rapeseed oil. Retailers are also working with suppliers to ramp up production of alternative cooking oils, to minimise the impact on consumers.”

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