As the world focuses on the oil market, the war in Ukraine is snarling vital grain shipments and forcing buyers to scramble for supplies from elsewhere. Smoke rises from a vessel damaged by a Russian attack in the Black Sea offshore from the Odesa region of Ukraine on July 28. Tue Vuong had secured four cargoes of wheat harvested from fertile lands around the Black Sea, roughly a fifth of what his milling company 5,000 miles away in Vietnam uses annually. Then he was told it wouldn't get shipped following a summer escalation in Russia's war with Ukraine. "I was very panicked," said Vuong, chief executive officer of Golden Wheat in Ho Chi Minh City. He was offered replacements for two of his cargoes with wheat from Bulgaria, but with a gap in his supplies, he spent weeks frantically searching for more. "We were too exposed to a crisis in the Black Sea."

The disruption highlights how the conflict continues to ripple through global food supply chains, amplifying inflation risks far beyond the region.