Munich pub trades beer for scarce cooking oil
STORY: A Munich brewpub is beating Europe's cooking oil shortages and ensuring plentiful stocks - by letting customers pay for their beer with sunflower oil.
Ukraine and Russia account for about 80% of global exports of sunflower seed oil, so supplies have dwindled in many European countries because of the conflict.
Bottles of rapeseed and sunflower oil have become more scarce on German supermarket shelves, and many shops ration the number of bottles per customer.
Erik Hoffman is the manager of Munich’s Giesinger Brewery:
"Getting oil is very difficult. For the reason that we do it in the supermarket, with every private customer. There, you can only get it rationed and in smaller quantities. And if you need 30 liters a week and only get 15 instead, at some point you won't be able to fry a schnitzel any longer."
To compensate for this shortage, the brewery is offering beer lovers a liter of their favorite brew for the same quantity of sunflower oil.
While a liter of beer costs about $7 in German pubs, a one-liter bottle of sunflower oil retails for about $4.5 - making the offer tempting for many customers.
"The customers are very satisfied with it. They are helped, we are helped. They are happy to help us. We are happy about every liter of oil. Ten minutes ago, someone from Ukraine arrived with fresh 80 liters and had it exchanged for beer. So, we are happy and satisfied."
