FOOD COMMODITIES · SEPTEMBER 2026 DATA
What September’s FAO food index says about your ingredient basket
Global food commodity prices rose in September, but the increase was uneven. A business buying mostly cereals faced a different price signal from one buying mostly meat. The headline alone cannot describe either purchasing basket.
FAO’s 2 October 2026 release put its September Food Price Index at 136.0 points, up 1.5% from August and 5.8% from September 2025. Those are international commodity measures. They do not directly measure the change in a household’s grocery bill.
Five groups, different directions
On a narrow screen, scroll the chart sideways or read its full text alternative below.
| Commodity group | Change |
|---|---|
| Sugar | +6.1% |
| Cereals | +5.1% |
| Vegetable oils | +0.9% |
| Dairy | −0.1% |
| Meat | −1.1% |
A small group with a large price change need not dominate a weighted total. Before using any aggregate in a purchasing discussion, ask two questions: which categories are included, and how much weight does each receive?
Try a hypothetical ingredient mix
Enter relative starting-cost weights for the five groups. You can use percentages, currency amounts, or points, provided all entries use the same basis. The calculator normalizes the weights; they need not add to 100.
Custom basket sensitivity
This is a hypothetical fixed-quantity basket illustration, not the official FAO index or a grocery-price forecast.
Allowed range: 0 to 1 billion per field. At least one weight must be positive. Inputs stay in your browser.
See the formula and checkable examples
Multiply each starting-cost weight by its group’s percentage change, add the products, then divide by total weight. Equal weights give (5.1 + 6.1 + 0.9 − 1.1 − 0.1) ÷ 5 = +2.18%.
A basket with 60 cereal units and 40 meat units gives (60 × 5.1 + 40 × −1.1) ÷ 100 = +2.62%. A meat-only basket gives −1.10%. These describe the supplied scenarios, not actual business costs.
Why the custom result differs from FAO
FAO combines five commodity-group indices using average export shares over 2014–2016. An equal-weight average of the groups’ monthly percentage changes does not reproduce that construction. The custom calculation deliberately answers a narrower question: what happens to a chosen starting-cost mix if its categories change at these stated rates?
The model holds quantities fixed and treats each broad group as one price movement. It ignores purchasing contracts, substitutions, product specifications and differences between a group benchmark and a particular supplier’s invoice. Changing weights changes the scenario, not the historical observation.
Why grocery receipts can move differently
A retail product also includes processing, packaging, transport, staffing and other costs. Currency conversion and the timing of inventory purchases can matter. A commodity percentage cannot simply be applied to the full shelf price. This article assigns no numerical pass-through rate or delay.
Use the signal carefully
For a practical review, separate three columns: the relevant commodity benchmark, your contracted purchase price, and your finished-product selling price. Record each observation period. That makes a difference visible without prematurely deciding what caused it.
Bottom line: September’s headline was positive, while two component groups declined. The useful next step is to identify your exposure and measurement basis, rather than turn the world index into a personal inflation estimate.
Sources and dates
© FAO 2026. September Food Price Index news release, published 2 October 2026; Food Price Index methodology and release page. Accessed 9 October 2026 KST (8 October UTC). Figures follow that release; later revisions may differ.
Charts, explanations and hypothetical calculations are original adaptations. No FAO endorsement is implied. No source photograph, logo or chart is reproduced.
