Shelves in supermarkets remain stocked as the food industry leans on the same logistics networks that worked during the pandemic and floods in 2024.
The Japanese restaurant inside the five-star hotel overlooking Dubai’s skyline has got enough frozen fish in storage for sushi for a while yet, its manager says. But its most important weekly delivery just stopped and there’s no sense of when it will resume.
Shelves in supermarkets remain stocked as the food industry leans on the same logistics networks that worked during the pandemic and floods in 2024. But some shipments are having to be rerouted, flown or trucked in, while the United Arab Emirates government has sought to reassure residents there are enough reserves to last for several months and is monitoring prices.
From the fresh Japanese fish you might associate with a center for international cuisine to basic staples, the war in the Middle East is straining supply chains and posing a challenge: How to keep food arriving when you import about 90% of what you eat.
For now, the disruption for consumers is minimal. The bigger question, though, is how long that resilience can last after Dubai and other Gulf cities were targeted by Iranian drones and missiles in retaliation for attacks by Israel and the US. The conflict has snarled up the region’s main shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, upending the oil market and even the movement of gold. Ships with Indian rice, Australian meat and Indonesian coffee aren’t getting through.
Food retailer Lulu, for example, has begun chartering cargo flights from multiple hubs, Chief Executive Officer Saifee Rupawala said. The company has already flown in meat, fruit and vegetables from India and is arranging additional flights from South Africa, Sri Lanka and Kenya, with each Etihad Airways plane carrying at least 80 tons, he said.
The company is also sending a cargo ship from Mumbai carrying about 500 containers of staples including rice, while using its own distribution network to help supply other retailers. Rupawala said the priority is ensuring shelves remain full and prices stable, with the UAE government subsidizing logistics costs where possible.
“For a couple of months they should be good, and I would not expect extensive military confrontation to last that long,” said Eckart Woertz, director of the GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies in Hamburg. “Everybody loses when shipping via the Strait of Hormuz is interrupted.”
Iran, the top supplier of fresh fruit and vegetables to the UAE, has banned exports of all food and agricultural products until further notice, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported last week.
The UAE is the largest market for Brazilian chicken, importing almost 480,000 tons last year. After the first strikes on Iran, shipping companies suspended bookings to the Middle East, industry group ABPA said. Companies have since resumed bookings for Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen and are seeking alternatives such as moving cargo to the UAE by truck.
“We are working so that we do not leave regular customers and partners without access to the essential commodity that is food,” said Ricardo Santin, ABPA’s president. Costs, though, are set to increase across the entire supply chain, potentially pushing up the price of chicken in the region, he said.
Indian shippers are finding it difficult to get vessels to send basmati rice to the Middle East, leaving cargoes stuck or delayed, according to Satish Goel, president of the main rice exporters association. About 400,000 tons of basmati rice is stranded at ports and at sea, he said.
Australia is also a regular exporter of agricultural produce to countries including Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE through the Strait of Hormuz. The country often sends livestock cargoes to the Middle East. A spokesperson for the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council said no shipments are currently en route, adding that companies “are not sending consignments into the conflict zone.”
Two, 20-foot containers with 38 tons of coffee beans headed for the Jebel Ali port in Dubai from Indonesia were now stuck in neighboring Oman waiting to be potentially rerouted to a closer destination in the UAE rather than by road.
“The containers of coffee will have to be stored there until there is a change in the Strait of Hormuz,” said Anass Doumi, co-founder of Royal Coffee Indonesia.
An analysis of 2025 trade transactions by Altana, a New York-based global supply chain management company, found that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain together imported an estimated $10 billion in cereals, meat, and fresh produce. Nearly all of it arrives by sea, transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, it said.
UAE Economy Minister Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri said at a briefing in Abu Dhabi last week the country has strategic reserves of essential items to cover four to six months and keep prices stable. The UAE also has alternative markets and supply routes if needs be. He urged people to buy what they need and not hoard. In the meantime, Gulf airlines have resumed regular commercial flights.
Similarly, the UAE’s giant Al Khaleej sugar refinery has enough reserves for two years and can meet demand from the UAE and the rest of the Gulf for that period, Managing Director Jamal Al-Ghurair said in an interview with Al Khaleej newspaper.
Qatar has also shown it can cope with supply shocks. In 2017, the Gulf state was effectively cut off by its neighbors after being accused of supporting Islamic militants. It was forced to open new trade routes to import food, including from Iran and Turkey. One businessman even flew in cows on Qatar Airways to help the supply of fresh milk.
“If something disrupts normal supply chains then a country can find an alternative route or supplier or find ways to modify their needs to do without,” said Tim Benton, professor at Leeds University in the UK and an expert in food security. “However the options are limited when countries are poor or alternative routes are impractical in the short term.”
Large supermarkets say they are holding costs down, with no signs of any shortages. At high-end local chain Spinneys, no increases have been passed on to consumers, said Warwick Gird, general manager for marketing and e-commerce.
The authorities have ordered retailers not to increase prices and are closely monitoring them, he said. Short-term gaps on shelves in the initial stages of the conflict were quickly filled by moving additional stock from central warehouses, Gird said, and inventory cover remains strong.
Even in the desert, some of the UAE’s supply is grown locally, part of the emirate’s economic diversification push of which food security is a key pillar.
Companies such as Pure Harvest Smart Farms, which produces tomatoes and other vegetables in high-tech greenhouses, say operations continue uninterrupted because the government considers them critical to supply chain infrastructure.
If the disruption lasts four to eight weeks, Pure Harvest expects to maintain current output, said Sky Kurtz, the company’s CEO. Beyond that, shortages of critical imported inputs such as fertilizers and pollination insects could begin to hurt.
“Even if the conflict extends and sea freight continues to be disrupted, there are alternatives such as land and air routes – it’s unlikely that all channels would be shut for weeks on end,” said Kurtz. “So the situation is solvable. The real question is at what cost.”
