Even the snack industry is being affected by the Iran war How the energy crisis is impacting many everyday goods and consumer products

Calbee, a Japanese multinational snack company, announced that some of its product packages will no longer be printed in color, but distributed in black and white. The news was widely covered by international media because it represents one of the first signs of the possible repercussions of the war in the Middle East on many consumer products, whose constant availability had until now been taken for granted. Due to the conflict in Iran, it has become more difficult to source naphtha, a gasoline derivative also used in the inks for snack packaging.

The Calbee products that, starting from the week of May 25, will be sold with grayscale packaging are eight, but overall the change will affect nearly 15 different layouts. The Japanese multinational, which employs more than 5,000 people and operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, and several Asian countries, did not specify when it expects conditions to allow a return to the original packaging, but emphasized that this measure will not affect the contents of the individual snack products in any way.

The energy crisis will continue even after the end of the war

The suspension of the war in the Middle East, with the ongoing ceasefire between the United States and Iran, does not mean that the energy crisis caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf will be resolved anytime soon. Even if the maritime passage essential for oil and natural gas trade were to become fully operational again, it would still take months to restore conditions comparable to those before the war. Many of the consequences on the price of aviation fuel, for example, will weigh heavily on the sector for a long time.

During the clashes, Iran attacked around ten Gulf countries, striking oil and natural gas production facilities, transportation infrastructure, and storage facilities. The entire region is among the world’s largest producers of oil and natural gas, but because of the conflict it has fully or partially suspended the production of fossil fuels: resolving the resulting energy crisis depends primarily on how long it will take to repair the damage to the production plants in the Gulf countries.

Furthermore, for technical reasons, the longer extraction plants remain inactive, the longer it takes to restart them. The CEO of Kuwait’s state-owned energy company, Sheikh Nawaf Al Sabah, said that at least three or four months after the end of the war will be needed before the region’s production returns to full capacity.

What would need to be done to make the Strait of Hormuz operational again?

In recent months, the (failed) attempts by the United States have shown that reopening the Strait of Hormuz through military action alone is practically unfeasible. It therefore seems inevitable that the diplomatic route must be followed, reaching an agreement with Iran, which nevertheless appears determined to maintain some form of control over the maritime passage even after the end of the war.

Hormuz is approximately 30 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, but the portions actually navigable by large ships, such as oil tankers, are much smaller because of the presence of small islands and shallow seabeds. With the beginning of the war, Iran also mined part of the passage, rendering it almost completely unusable. Even if the strait were reopened through diplomacy and the mines removed, it is likely that commercial companies would remain reluctant to cross it for a long time.

However, a similar precedent already exists in the Middle East. After the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, the Yemeni radical group known as the Houthis began attacking commercial vessels linked to Israel and the United States in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, severely disrupting traffic in the Red Sea. The United States responded with a bombing campaign against Yemen, and in 2025, following a ceasefire agreement, the passage was fully reopened; many companies nevertheless continued to avoid the area for security reasons, but over time navigation gradually resumed, also thanks to the Western military presence protecting commercial shipping routes.