Insight Focus
Our forecast for global sugar production in 2025/26 is up by 1.2 million tonnes from our last update. We estimate a sugar production surplus of 8.7 million tonnes. We now think that India will produce more sugar in 2025/26 at 32.8 million tonnes, due to less sucrose being diverted to ethanol.
2025/26 at a Glance…
Global Sugar Production
Our estimate for global production is up from our last update, and we now forecast that global sugar production will hit 186.5 million tonnes.
This comes after marginal upwards revisions made to our forecasts for the China, India and other smaller sugar producing countries.
For 2026/27 the outlook isn’t clear. We have provisionally estimated another year of strong sugar production, at 187 million tonnes. This would be the second highest on record. However, raw sugar futures prices have recently fallen to their lowest level in 5 years and mills in Centre-South Brazil, the world’s largest cane growing region, have started making ethanol at the expense of sugar.
If these low sugar prices are sustained into 2026 it’s possible that CS Brazilian sugar production in 2026/27 could be materially lower. This would have a large impact on global sugar production, and therefore our surplus projection for next season.
Global Sugar Consumption
Our estimate for global sugar consumption remains unchanged from the last update at 177.8 million tonnes.
For 2026/27, our initial estimates show the strongest consumption growth since 2021/22 (when the world was emerging from COVID lockdowns) at 2 million tonnes. This is because we expect that finished product stocks around the world will rebuild now that sugar prices are half what they were at their 2023 peak.
Counterbalancing this, we are still concerned that the emergence of GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound will undermine sugar consumption globally. In 2025 and 2026 this is likely to occur only in the world’s wealthiest countries, where many consumers can afford these drugs.
However, semaglutide (Ozempic) comes off patent in many countries in 2026. At that point, drug manufacturers will be able to release cheaper biosimilars, increasing availability. This should lead to greater uptake in other less-wealthy countries too.
Production Surplus in 2025/26
We now project a global production surplus of 8.7 million tonnes in 2025/26; the second-largest sugar production surplus since 2017/18.
We then forecast a surplus of 7.3 million tonnes for 26/27.
Production Update: India
We have raised our forecast for India’s sugar production for 2025/26, to 32.8 million tonnes.
This is because we have reduced our forecast for sucrose diversion to ethanol, as cane-based ethanol has been losing its market share to grain-based ethanol.
Other Sugar Producers at a Glance…
