alt Hacker NewsThat’s a pretty amazing definition of upstream. I imagine you probably understand that plastics, pharmaceuticals, and fertilizers are made out of petroleum derivatives, right?
Since you seem pretty smart: are there petroleum based cooking oils?
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That is the normal definition of upstream. To harvest and transport the olives and olive oil, you need trucks, and often plastic containers and bottles. These farms and distributors will pass on their price of fuel and petroleum materials to the consumer.
Here's my definition of upstream: If the petroleum stops, the cooking oil stops, even though the cooking oil is 100% plant-based.
Given that what we're talking about is disruptions caused by a shortage of petroleum, is there any other definition of "upstream" that is meaningful for the conversation?
The machinery to make them, the fertilisers to grow them, the plastic to package them, the transport to deliver them. It ain’t just cooking oils that will be massively impacted. The entire food chain in the western world is reliant on petrochemicals. The only question is the lag between now and when those impacts start being felt and this translates into bumped prices and/or shortages.
EDIT: corrected an autocorrection.