France has run out of mustard

Bryce: [00:00:02] From Equity Mates media. This is the dive. I'm your host. Bryce Leske. France has run out of mustard. That's right. The home of mustard is mustard with supermarkets limiting sales to one jar per person. Care for a French supermarket giant is being accused of stockpiling mustard to drive up prices, and chefs are appealing on social media for any spare jars. But behind the funny headlines, there is a devastating story, a story that will only get more frequent. This is a story about climate change. It is Friday, the 22nd of July. And today I want to know, how has France run out of mustard? To do this, I'm joined by the co-founder and my colleague here at Equity Mates, Alec Renehan. Ren, how are you going? [00:00:45][43.1]

Alec: [00:00:46] I'm very good. Bryce excited for this story. [00:00:47][1.5]

Bryce: [00:00:48] Absolutely. So Ren we're seeing a lot of weird shortages this year. We've firstly seen semiconductors. Then it was wait in India. After that it was cooking oil in the UK and iceberg lettuce in Australia. And now it is mustard in France. Disaster. Are all of these linked? [00:01:05][17.0]

Alec: [00:01:06] Yeah. We've seen a lot of shortages this year and in some ways they share common elements. But each story has its own unique circumstances. [00:01:13][7.5]

Bryce: [00:01:14] Okay, so help me understand the French story. [00:01:17][2.7]

Alec: [00:01:17] So for starters, France consumes about £2.2 or about one kilogram of mustard per person every year. It's the world's largest consumer of mustard. But across France, mustard has disappeared from supermarket shelves. [00:01:33][15.4]

Audio clip: [00:01:33] There is a mustard shortage. The Guardian reports that climate change and rising costs are causing supermarkets in France to run out of mustard. [00:01:40][6.6]

Alec: [00:01:41] Shelves are mostly empty and those with stock are limiting purchases to one jar per person. Care for a leading French and international supermarket chain has been forced to deny rumours rampant on social media that it is stockpiling mustard to drive up prices. And chefs big chefs like Pierre Grandjean in Brittany, have resorted to appealing online for any spare mustard that anyone might have. [00:02:08][26.9]

Bryce: [00:02:08] Of course. [00:02:08][0.2]

Alec: [00:02:10] A good tablespoon. [00:02:10][0.6]

Bryce: [00:02:11] Or more of French mustard. It's mustard. Go. [00:02:16][5.0]

Alec: [00:02:17] It must have good sarin. [00:02:19][1.8]

Bryce: [00:02:19] While mustard may be central to French cuisine, and we may think of mustard as a French condiment. Many of the ingredients that actually go into it are not from France. [00:02:28][8.5]

Alec: [00:02:28] Yeah, that's right. It's a story of a global supply chain, like so much of what we consume today. According to the Burgundy Mustard Association, an association I really want to get into. 80% of the brown mustard seeds brassica juicy are. That's the last time I'm going to use that term. Brown mustard seeds from here on in. 80% of the brown mustard seeds that make Dijon mustard actually come from Canada, while. [00:02:53][25.0]

Audio clip: [00:02:53] Other types of mustard use white seeds. Dijon is made with these black ones which give it a tangy, sharp flavour. Named after the town of Dijon, France. Very few of the black seeds used to make Dijon mustard actually come from France. [00:03:07][13.6]

Alec: [00:03:08] And this year the mustard makers of France have been hit with a triple catastrophe. [00:03:12][4.2]

Bryce: [00:03:13] A triple catastrophe. Let's go through it. The New York Times attributed the shortage to, quote, a perfect storm of climate change. A European war covered supply problems. [00:03:22][8.9]

Alec: [00:03:22] And rising costs. So the first there was a heat wave in North America and Canada and Burgundy as well actually linked to climate change that cut Canadian mustard seed exports in half. [00:03:34][12.3]

Bryce: [00:03:35] Wow. [00:03:35][0.0]

Alec: [00:03:36] Then there was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has traditionally been a fallback supply for mustard seeds. And then the third catastrophe importers are facing the global COVID related shipping and transport logjams before the pandemic. And the lockdowns were willing to bet that supply chains were something that almost none of you probably ever thought much about, unless, of course, you work in logistics. [00:03:58][22.6]

Bryce: [00:03:59] So in some of these stories are pretty well told. We're familiar with, you know, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing supply chain logjams. But I want to put a pin in the climate change story for now and get back to that in a moment. So help me understand the impact of this triple catastrophe. [00:04:15][16.0]

Alec: [00:04:16] So after the heat wave, Canada's exports of mustard seeds halved. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the supply of Ukrainian mustard seeds also massively diminished. They're struggling to get produce out of ports in Ukraine. This further constrained supply and drove up prices. Wholesale prices for mustard seeds were double or triple. The normal levels up 100 200%, and retail prices were up up to 25% in some places. But mostly as we're seeing in France, we're seeing shortages as a result. [00:04:50][34.3]

Bryce: [00:04:52] Well, I guess the follow up question from that then is why can't France just grow more? [00:04:55][3.8]

Alec: [00:04:56] So burgundy in France do grow. Some must. It states they're also dealing with a heat wave at the moment. They're trying to grow more. But one problem Burgundy producers face is that the European Union has banned an insecticide, which is been long used to combat a particular pest on those mustard seeds, the black flea beetle. So it's been difficult for other parts of the world to pick up the supply that's fallen out of the market because of the Canadian heatwave and the Ukrainian invasion. [00:05:26][29.2]

Bryce: [00:05:27] Fascinating. So earlier in this episode, I put a pin in the climate change conversation and after the break, I want to pull that pin out. How do we know it was climate change and what can we learn from this catastrophe? [00:05:37][10.7]

Audio clip: [00:05:43] The fact of the matter is, is that in France, mustard is so ingrained in the culture and the cuisine. I was talking to the owner of this bistro and she was like, listen, it's been a really tough month because we use mustard in a lot of our sauces. We use mustard in a lot of our dishes. And all of a sudden, we have to change all these recipes. We have to figure out new balance of flavours. My dad lives also in a little village in France. Like this is not like it's Paris. This is people driving probably 20, 30 minutes to this grocery store. [00:06:09][25.7]

Bryce: [00:06:10] Welcome back to the dive. Climate change. It's gone from a future risk to a current problem. And France's mustard supplier has been an early victim. Help me understand how we know this is climate related. [00:06:21][11.7]

Alec: [00:06:22] So there was a heat wave over Alberta and Saskatchewan, which scientists said would have been, quote, virtually impossible without global warming. And this heatwave slash, say, production by 50% last year, decimating global supplies. [00:06:37][14.4]

Bryce: [00:06:37] Yeah, pretty dramatic impact. And for scientists to say virtually impossible without global warming, it is. It's pretty stark. So how bad was this heatwave? [00:06:45][8.0]

Alec: [00:06:46] So in June 2021, the Pacific Northwest of Canada and the US experienced temperatures never previously observed. Records were broken and Bryce they weren't just broken. They were broken by several degrees Celsius. In many places. [00:06:59][12.9]

Audio clip: [00:06:59] An extreme heat wave is sweeping across western Canada, claiming dozens of lives as people struggle to keep cool. The unprecedented heat smashed Canada's temperature record when the mercury hit 49 degrees Celsius. [00:07:12][12.2]

Audio clip: [00:07:12] In this instance, I think the big lesson coming out of the past number of days is that the climate crisis is not fiction. It is absolutely real. [00:07:21][8.4]

Audio clip: [00:07:21] It has been extremely hot. Temperatures very challenging. A new all time record of 49.5 degrees Celsius, that's just over 121 Fahrenheit was set on Tuesday. [00:07:31][9.8]

Bryce: [00:07:32] This is not an uncommon situation. [00:07:33][1.2]

Alec: [00:07:34] In the summer, though. So why have the temperatures been so high? Well, scientists suspect climate change has had a part to play. An all time Canadian record was set 49.5 degrees Celsius or over 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the village of Lytton. 

Bryce: [00:07:53] That is hot. 

Alec: [00:07:54] It's really hot. 

Bryce: [00:07:56] And we're here in Australia and we get some pretty hot temperatures and 49.5 is hot. So I guess Ren what can we take from all of this? 

Alec: [00:08:03] So the heatwave was estimated to be a one in 1000 year event. But the problem with climate change and this story is becoming all more frequent these one in 1000 year events are no longer one in 1000 years in a world of two degrees warming. And we're not there yet. But if we don't change, we're well on our way. In a world of two degrees warming, scientists estimate that this event, which would have occurred only one every 1000 years, will occur roughly every 5 to 10 years. So, yeah, it's pretty stark. 

Bryce: [00:08:36] So is this an isolated incident then? Ren. And are we seeing other impacts of climate change start to emerge? 

Audio clip: [00:08:41] The heart of England today hotter than the Caribbean and Western Sahara. 

Alec: [00:08:46] It's timely that we're talking about this story this week because it's a week where the UK saw record temperatures. They had their temperature record broken similar to Canada last year. We're also seeing the US deal with a massive heat wave. Over 100 million people are expected to have temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more. The world is feeling the heat quite literally, and as a result, we're saying a number of early signs of climate change impacting crops. Earlier this year, we saw a heatwave in India decimate wheat supplies. 

Audio clip: [00:09:19] And the Indian summer clearly came early this year. It's been hotter than ever. It has been breaking all records and will likely impact the incoming monsoon season that was already predicted to be 20% weaker. 

Alec: [00:09:32] They saw temperatures reach up to 49 degrees Celsius again about 120 degrees Fahrenheit because of this heatwave and the lack of wheat supplies. The Government placed a ban on wheat exports and and the world was short of wheat for a while. In Australia we've seen once in a generation flooding. That now seems to happen almost every year up in Queensland and that has decimated iceberg lettuce crops. 

Bryce: [00:09:56] The flood crisis is. 

Alec: [00:09:57] Expected to add even more pain to household grocery bills. In California, drought conditions are decimating the almond industry in a region that produces 80% of the world's almonds. So these are all stories from different parts of the world. But at their core, extreme weather exacerbated by climate change, is impacting our food supply.

Bryce: [00:10:18] And with everything so globalised now as well, it turns from quite a localised impact to truly a global impact which is concerning. So Ren wheat, almonds, iceberg lettuce, brown mustard seeds. These are all stories from around the world, but at their core they share that common thread. They are some of the first effects of the more extreme weather that we're seeing as a result. Of climate change. A devastating story and really a reminder that we do need to take action now. 

Alec: [00:10:45] Yeah. So beyond the headline of France Running Out of Mustard, which is pretty funny, is a really quite devastating story. 

Bryce: [00:10:54] It is. It is. And that's what we try to do here at the dive is go beyond the headlines. So thank you for joining us for today's edition of The Dive. We're also trying something new. If you're listening in the UK or testing a new technology called refer a matic. Yes. Refer back to click the link in the show notes to find out more. You could find yourself winning a trip to Australia if you prefer to dive over in the UK. Remember to follow us on Instagram at the The Dive Dot Business News to keep up with some of the biggest news stories from around the world. If you have a topic suggestion, hit us up at the time at Equity Mates dot com. Otherwise please write and review. Really appreciate it. Thanks for joining us.