Extreme weather has hit the sugar industry hard this year, which might mean higher prices for Halloween candy.
“This has been a very tough year for global sugar. If you look at the top ten producing countries this year, six of them have had extreme weather,” said Chief Meteorologist at Everstream Analytics, John Davis. “And the ramification of that is higher prices for anything that you use sugar for, including candy.”
Drought in Thailand, the fourth-largest sugar producer, reduced production by nearly 25%. Flooding affected India, the US, and Europe, which rank as the second, sixth, and third top sugar producers.
According to the US Food and Drug Administration, extreme weather is anticipated to cut global sugar supply by 10% to 15% in the 2023/24 growing season, with an estimated global production of 187.9 million tons.
Additionally, Pakistan and Mexico are facing drought conditions, while China had destructive rainfall.
“And, of course, all of the extreme weather that we’ve had on a global basis, it has come at the wrong time,” Davis said. “If you get heavy rains during harvest, that interferes with the harvest activity and damages the crop overall. But it all comes back to the amount and frequency of extreme weather that we’ve had on a global basis.”
According to the International Sugar Organization, sugar prices have surged by 42%, reaching a 12-year high of 31.54 cents per pound in the past year.
“Sugar prices are the subject of conversation, but we are not in a scarcity situation with sugar supply, and we don’t anticipate any disruptions,” said Todd Scott, senior communications manager at The Hershey Company in July. “Similarly, the price of sugar does not have an impact on our Halloween.”
The increase in sugar prices isn’t limited to Halloween candy and baked goods. Sugar is a versatile ingredient used in various industries, including ethanol fuel production, food preservation, medicine, cosmetics, pest control, bioplastics, construction materials, paper products, herbicides, cement, adhesives, livestock feed, and detergents.
“Other sectors that use sugar, we talk quite a bit about energy, ethanol, things like that,” said Davis. “So many different sectors out there have sugar as a key component.”
