How much did global food prices change from 2024 to 2025?

Executive Summary — Quick Answer, No Nonsense

Global food prices between 2024 and 2025 moved only modestly overall: the FAO Food Price Index averaged 126.4 points in October 2025, slightly below its October 2024 level, indicating a small year‑over‑year decline for that index, while U.S. government forecasts projected overall food prices to rise about 3.0 percent for 2025 compared with 2024. Different measures and time windows yield different headlines — FAO’s international commodity index shows minor easing driven by cereals, sugar and meat declines, while national consumer price forecasts (USDA) foresee modest inflation in retail food costs ^{[1] [2]}.

1. What claimants said — pulling the statements apart

Analyses provided two recurring claims: first, that FAO’s Food Price Index ended October 2025 slightly below its October 2024 level, implying a mild year‑on‑year decrease in international commodity prices driven by falls in cereals, sugar, dairy and meat; second, that domestic consumer food prices are expected to increase in 2025 — roughly 2.4–3.0 percent depending on the category, with food‑away‑from‑home rising faster than food‑at‑home. The UN‑framed warning emphasizes that prices will remain persistently high through 2025 despite monthly declines, citing structural pressures like climate, supply chains and geopolitics ^{[1] [2] [3]}. These claims highlight a central tension: international commodity indices can fall while retail prices still rise because of transmission lags, supply chains and different baskets.

2. The FAO picture — international commodity prices eased slightly

The FAO Food Price Index averaged 126.4 points in October 2025, a reading that is slightly below the October 2024 level and down from recent peaks, with the cereal price index down 9.5 percent year‑on‑year and sugar down 27.4 percent, while vegetable oil prices rose to their highest since July 2022, lifting that sub‑index ^[1]. These figures reflect international wholesale market movements, where harvest prospects, global inventories and trade flows weighed on several staple markets even as specific oils firmed. FAO’s monthly data show moderate change for the basket overall rather than a large swing; the framing matters because FAO measures international trade prices, not retail consumer baskets or country‑level inflation.

3. The USDA outlook — consumers likely paid more in 2025 than in 2024

The USDA’s September 2025 Food Price Outlook forecasts overall food prices rising about 3.0 percent in 2025, with food‑at‑home rising 2.4 percent and food‑away‑from‑home rising 3.9 percent, and notes 2024 saw increases of 2.3 percent overall ^[2]. This is a domestic consumer price projection for the U.S. that incorporates labor, energy, interest rates, and service costs that do not directly mirror FAO commodity movements. The USDA also forecasts diverging paths across categories — farm‑level cattle, eggs and milk up while fruits, vegetables and wheat may weaken — underlining that retail price inflation reflects aggregated supply‑chain and service dynamics in addition to commodity costs.

4. Reconciling apparent contradictions — baskets, transmission, and timing

The disparate headlines reconcile once one recognizes three facts: FAO measures a global international commodity basket that softened year‑on‑year by October 2025, while USDA projections and national CPI measures track domestic consumer baskets and services that can rise even if commodity prices fall; second, timing and monthly volatility mean some monthly declines coexist with longer‑run persistence; third, heterogeneity across commodities (sharp sugar and cereal declines vs. stronger vegetable oil and some livestock prices) produces mixed net effects depending on weighting ^{[1] [2]}. Therefore, the statement “global food prices changed from 2024 to 2025” is true but needs specification: FAO reports a slight overall decline by October, while consumer‑facing measures and forecasts indicate modest increases in many countries.

5. Bottom line and outstanding uncertainties every reader should note

The balanced conclusion is that global wholesale food prices were broadly stable to slightly lower in 2025 versus 2024 per FAO’s index, while retail consumer food costs were expected to rise modestly in 2025 in forecasts such as the USDA’s; both trends are supported by the supplied analyses ^{[1] [2]}. Key uncertainties include how exchange rates, energy costs, extreme weather, and geopolitical events will re‑transmit to retail prices, and the diverging experience across countries and food categories. Policymakers and households should therefore treat single headline numbers as partial and focus on the specific price basket and time window relevant to their needs ^{[3] [2]}.