Ed Cinco of Youngstown, Ohio, has a problem. He's the director of purchasing for Schwebel's Baking Company and he can't get enough soybean oil, a key ingredient in the company's bread and buns. Suppliers won't even talk to him.

"The only quotes I can get, for 2022, are from the person I currently buy from," Cinco says. "So I am basically at [that supplier's] mercy."

Prices are rocketing upward, from 35 cents per pound a year ago to almost a dollar. Cinco says companies that crush soybeans and extract the oil are sending it elsewhere: "They all want to go to biodiesel."