Jean-Luc Boujon 6:16 a.m., December 21, 2021
Due to a poor harvest due to global warming, the mustard seed harvest has been very poor this year.
Producers therefore lack the raw material to manufacture as much as in other years.
The shortage of other raw materials also weighs on the costs of companies which are forced to increase their prices.
It is a crisis like the sector has not seen for 25 years.
At the origin of the crisis, a very poor harvest of mustard seeds this year because of the drought, mainly in Canada, the world's largest producer.
But the shortage is also a reality in France, as explained by Marc Desarmenien, boss of the company Fallot, the last independent mustard maker in France which cultivates its seeds in Burgundy.
"This year, there is a significant deficit in Burgundy: 50% less mustard seeds. The main culprit is global warming. Because in 2021, there were fairly mild temperatures in March early April, followed by frost. So that greatly disrupted seed yields per hectare. "
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A price increase of 10 to 15%
Another problem: the very significant increase in the cost of raw materials used to condition mustard.
"We observe an increase of about 35% on cardboard. The steel, which is used to make a metal capsule, has increased enormously: 42% increase. And then, packaging glass has also progressed a lot, at about 12% ", continues the mustard maker.
As a result, mustard is now 10% to 15% more expensive at Fallot, while production is declining.
In Burgundy, we fear that this situation will become the norm.