Insight Focus
We continue to forecast a large sugar production surplus for 2025/26. Production for this season could be the second highest on record. Our first estimate for 2026/27 shows a small production surplus.
2025/26 at a Glance…
Global Sugar Production
We estimate that global sugar production will hit 185.3 million tonnes in 2025/26. If achieved, this would be the second highest production on record, after the 2017/18 season. However, global sugar production remains within the 14-year range of 160-190 million tonnes and doesn’t show any signs of breaking above this level.
Note that our forecast for 2025/26 will be heavily reliant on Northern Hemisphere beet and cane crop performance, and these harvests are just starting.
For 2026/27, we think global sugar production could decline year on year. This is due to lower beet prices leading to lower acreage planted in the EU.
Global Sugar Consumption
Our estimate for global sugar consumption currently stands at 177.8 million tonnes, down by 0.2 million tonnes from last season.
For 2026/27, our initial estimates show the strongest consumption growth since 2021/22 (when the world was emerging from COVID lockdowns) at 2.2 million tonnes. This is because we hope that finished stock pipelines in Africa and West Asia will rebuild now that sugar prices are almost half what they were at their 2023 peak.
Looking ahead, we do not expect meaningful consumption growth in 2025 or subsequent years. This is primarily due to:
- Persistent food price inflation
- Rising awareness of sugar intake
- The growing impact of GLP-1 drugs
We are 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.
We have therefore factored in a decline in consumption, starting in the US in 2024 and extending to most G20 countries in 2025 and 2026, to reflect the growing influence of GLP-1 usage.
Production Surplus in 2025/26
We now project a global production surplus of 7.4 million tonnes in 2025/26. This would still be the second-largest sugar production surplus since 2017/18.
This could then be followed by a more modest 4.4 million tonne surplus in 2026/27.
Production Update: Australia
We estimate that Australia will produce just under 3.8 million tonnes of sugar in 25/26.
The weather has not been favourable for Australia’s cane crop, with cyclones and flooding earlier in the year followed by more recent damage from heavy rainfall in the north. Although it is too early to know the full extent of the damage caused, newly planted cane has been hit by the floods, which is likely to affect the 2026/27 crop.
Other Sugar Producers at a Glance…
