I want the total quantity of vegetal and mineral oil, in litre, sold
in Canada and US. Not petrol!, but vegetal oil like Oliver oil, canola oil, soya
oil, peanut oil… 
PRECISION: I'm interesting about the oil use by the people for salade,
home cooking (but not fried, but for a wock example), dessert...

I have a new kind of vegetal oil to put on the Canadian and American
market. But this oil can not be use for fried patato example. But for
eat with salade and so.
I want to know in liters how big is the market, in the way to
see; if the part of the market I need for start my business are
possible to be take.

Ex: (only a exemple): The Canadian produce 100 000 liters of olive
oil.
They buy 150 000 liters a year. So they import 50 000 example. 
If I need to sell 3 000 liter to covermy expense, then it become
possible to take this part of the market and I will go on with my product.
 But if the Canadian buy only 30 000 liter of vegetal oil and need to sell
20 000 liter to make profitable my business. Then I know it's not posible.

Thank

Vipaire;

Hello talou-ga, and thank you for your interesting question.  

Fortunately, the governments of both the US and Canada have ample
sources of statistics to address your question.  Here are the
appropriate data for both countries.

----------

Canada produced 1,060,813 metric tonnes of food grade oils and fats in
2001, the most recent year for which data are available.

A bit more than half of this amount -- 596,664 tonnes -- was
categorized as "salad oil" including:


canola oil....................159,441 tonnes
soybean oil...................127,159 tonnes
palm oil........................9,794 tonnes
coconut oil.....................7,000 tonnes
sunflower oil.....................919 tonnes
corn oil..........................274 tonnes
other vegetable oils...........10,411 tonnes

Note that one metric ton = 2,200 pounds and amounts to approximately
1,000 liters of vegetable oil (so that annual production of vegetable
"salad oils" in Canada is about 597 million liters).

Source:  Statistics Canada "Oils and Fats" Vol 52:No. 12   December
2001
http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/downpub/listpub.cgi?catno=32-006-XIB

----------

The United States operates on a somewhat larger scale than its good
neighbor up North.

Total production of edible vegetable oils in 1997 (the most recent
year available -- the U.S. may be larger, but it seems to be slower,
at least when it comes to compiling its statistics) was 8.54 billion
pounds of vegetable oil.

This is equivalent to 4.27 million tons (which is a bit less than 4
million metric tonnes or about 4 billion liters).  The breakout of
production is:

soybean oil...................5.24 billion pounds

corn oil......................1.75 billion pounds

other vegetable oils..........1.55 billion pounds


Source:  1997 Economic Census of the United States
http://www.census.gov/prod/ec97/97m31s-ps.pdf

----------

As to your question about imports and exports, while I don't have
precise figures, I can assure you that the cross-border sale of
vegetable oils between the United States and Canada (not to mention
with other countries as well) is quite substantial -- on the order of
millions of liters.  I don't think you need concern yourself about the
possibility that the introduction of your product would over-saturate
the market in either country.

----------

I hope this information is what you were seeking.  If anything here is
not clear, or if you feel some additional information is called for,
please let me know through a Request for Clarification, and I'll be
happy to assist your further.



search strategy:  Used available bookmarks to statistical sources in
the US and Canada.