High-oleic sunflower premium disappears in Ukraine while Europe still pays up to €100/t
Prices for high-oleic and standard sunflower seed in Ukraine have levelled out this season, according to UkrAgroConsult and Kurkul. European buyers still pay a premium of up to €100 per tonne, although contracts to Italy have eased from about €610 to €595 per tonne.
The price gap between high-oleic and standard sunflower seed in Ukraine has almost disappeared this season, even as European buyers continue to pay a premium of up to €100 per tonne for high-oleic material, according to UkrAgroConsult and Kurkul, which cited reporting by Latifundist.com. For Ukrainian growers, processors and traders, the differential that justified the switch to high-oleic hybrids has effectively been priced out of the domestic market, while it survives one step down the export chain.
Domestic premium erased
Hryhorii Sysak, a broker at Corviana Trading FZE, said the two qualities now trade at virtually the same level in Ukraine. “On the Ukrainian market the difference has practically levelled out, while on the European market the premium over standard sunflower seed can reach up to €100 per tonne,” he said in comments carried by Kurkul, which attributed the material to Latifundist.com.
The premium on high-oleic seed has always been tied to the season and to demand rather than to a fixed specification value. In some years it reached $80–100 per tonne, while in weaker seasons producers had to sell high-oleic seed at the price of standard seed, UkrAgroConsult reported. Last season the spread was wide enough to be clearly visible to farmers, and it encouraged them to expand plantings of high-oleic hybrids. That additional area is now reaching the market in a season when domestic buyers are not paying for the specification.
Europe still differentiates, at lower prices
European values have also softened. Contracts for the delivery of high-oleic sunflower seed to Italy were previously concluded at around €610 per tonne, while the current level is close to €595 per tonne, according to UkrAgroConsult — a decline of roughly €15 per tonne. Even at the lower level, high-oleic seed remains a separate product in Europe and is quoted with a premium over standard seed. Sysak said selling high-oleic seed as standard material makes no economic sense.
The oil spread keeps the premium alive
The main support for the premium comes from the oil rather than from the seed. High-oleic sunflower oil can trade at up to €200 per tonne above standard sunflower oil, Sysak said, and that spread is what keeps buyers interested in dedicated lots of high-oleic seed. For crushers, capturing it means keeping the two qualities apart through storage and processing runs; for merchants, it means the premium is realistically available only where the end user specifically requires the high-oleic specification, mainly in the food industry and frying segments that buy on fatty-acid profile.
Growers are not cutting area
The farming company Annushka has grown high-oleic sunflower since 2015–2016. It has always found buyers for the crop, but it has not always received a premium: twice over that period the seed had to be sold at the price of standard sunflower — in 2022, after the start of the full-scale invasion, and once before the full-scale war, Kurkul reported.
Despite current prices, Annushka does not plan to reduce its high-oleic sunflower area next year and will keep to its existing crop rotation. For processors and exporters, the combination of near-parity in Ukraine and a surviving European premium of up to €100 per tonne defines where the margin now sits: in segregation, documentation and direct access to buyers that pay for the specification, rather than in the field itself.
