What’s a good salad without dressing? This very summer culinary question will have to be answered by finding alternatives for the coming months, because a basic ingredient is missing in our supermarkets: mustard. For once, it is not so much the war between Russia and Ukraine that is the cause of this shortage, even if the cessation of trade with the third and fourth largest exporters in the world is weighing on the market.
The fault lies above all with the drought and fires last summer in Canada, which provides 80% of the seeds consumed by the French market. Production thus fell by 53%, according to the canadian ministry of agriculture, so exports were limited. And as the cycle of agriculture dictates, “mustard seed stocks are critically low” as the new crop begins, blows to 20 minutes Luc Vandermaesen, Managing Director of Reine de Dijon, a mustard manufacturing company.
“There will be mustard on the shelves again around November”
And difficult for the brand based in Côte-d’Or to meet the expectations of its customers. “We quickly sell what has been produced in our factories”, explains Luc Vandermaesen, who deplores “the absence of information as to the deliveries of seeds that we are going to receive”. “We work without visibility, with a week’s notice, no more,” he says.
The manufacturer still sees the end of the tunnel. The French summer harvest was “rather very good” and “exceeds the historic yield we had before 2016”, rejoices Fabrice Genin, farmer and president of the association of mustard seed producers in Burgundy, with France 3. “The 2022 harvest will be 50% higher than the 2021 harvest”, predicts Luc Vandermaesen, who announces that “there will be mustard on the shelves again around November 2022, and more significantly from the start 2023, when the Canadian harvest will be delivered to France”.
It remains to know the volumes, and whether this will meet demand. “For 2023, industrial demand from the sector aims to multiply by 2.5 the quantities produced in France”, announces Luc Vandermaesen. As a result of the gap between limited supply and demand, the price of a jar of mustard has jumped 14% in one year, according to data from IRI taken over by BFMTV. An increase which should be long-term, “if only because of the contracts signed with French farmers so that they increase the cultivated areas” to cope with the shortage, warns the general manager of Reine de Dijon. But the impact on the purchasing power of the French will remain minimal: “the average Frenchman spent only €4.60 per year on his mustard in 2021”, indicates Luc Vandermaesen.