Feb 19, 2020
A Canadian delegation recently met representatives of India’s Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) to understand the Indian edible oil market.
Canada plans to enhance its export basket of commodities including canola oil, which it will position as premium healthy oil, wheat and barley after the country lost India as the as biggest consumer of Canada’s yellow peas and The Saskatchewan province of Canada will set up one of its global trade offices in India. The other two are in Japan and Singapore.
Canada exports more than 90% of its canola as seed, oil or meal to 50 markets around the world, bringing billions of dollars into Canada. The biggest buyer of canola oil and meal is the United States, accounting for about 52% of oil exports and 69% of meal exports in 2018. For raw seed, the most important destinations are China, Japan and Mexico.
Canada believes that there are opportunities to grow because India has a population of 1.3 billion people and it is growing.
India does not import a lot of canola oil and Canada wants to take on this opportunity because of the size of the market and the changing consumer behaviour.
Indian food processing industry is growing at 8% and at some point, it will have to source ingredients from somewhere. We see growth in everything, wheat, barley, flax, pulses etc.,” Minister of Agriculture David Marit of Saskatchevan province said.
Canola is a trade name for what we call rapeseed or mustard oil/seeds. India cannot import Canola seeds as they are genetically modified, while small quantities of Canola oil are being imported into India for blending with other oils.
Industry sources said Canola seeds imported from Canada are crushed in Dubai and the extracted oil is then exported to India. However, the imports of Canola oils have been declining over past three years from 3.77 lakh tons in 2019.
Indians consumed 23.9 lakh tons of mustard/rapeseed oil in 2018-19, which accounts for about 11% of the total edible oil consumption in the country. Traditionally, north India and east India use mustard oil. Canola oil is also called double zero, meaning having zero pungency and zero bitterness unlike Indian mustard oil.
Big population with health issues like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are the key features of Indian market attracting Canadian canola industry.