The U.S. is well into the second wave of COVID cases and a number of states are reinstituting shutdowns and quarantines, especially targeting restaurants, adding another round of volatility to food service demand. Also, travel restrictions through the holidays will impact motor fuel use and thus biofuels.

The November data are not yet in, and the renewed lockdown came late in the month or early this month, but the recovery of sales as tracked by the Census Bureau for “eating and drinking places” – about 75 percent of all foodservice sales – stalled in October dropping $100 million from September after having rebounded every month since April. The rest of food service sales comes from the institutional demand, such...