Food Prices: What Actually Happens Next

Risk level: High · June 2026

The previous post explained why the food price crisis is already built in. This one maps the timeline: what happens between now and the end of 2027, and when the consequences become impossible to ignore.

The short answer is that 2026 is the pressure-building year, and 2027 is the peak year. The bad news is not all at once. It arrives in stages, each one more visible than the last, until the spring of 2027 when the supermarket bill becomes the story.

The Starting Point: Where We Are Now (June 2026)

Three things are already in motion.

Fertiliser prices are structurally elevated. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz on 28 February 2026 removed roughly one third of globally traded nitrogen fertiliser from the market. Urea prices rose 46% month on month in May 2026. The fertiliser price index for May 2026 was 199.71. This is not a spike. It is a new structural baseline.

The growing season is underway under cost pressure. Northern Hemisphere farmers are applying nitrogen to their fields right now, in June and July. They are applying less than they would have at lower prices, and what they are paying is significantly more than a year ago. That reduction in applied nitrogen was decided in April and May. It determines the yield that arrives in October and November.

El Niño is already damaging crops. The Joint Research Centre published an explicit warning on 8 June 2026. Sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific hit new June records. Dry weather is disrupting planting across Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Australia is forecasting below-normal rainfall for its cropping regions. The crop that is being planted now, under fertiliser stress, is also being planted into a weather system that is already hostile.

These three factors are not independent. They compound each other. Crops with reduced nitrogen are more vulnerable to heat and water stress. The same plant that might survive a dry spell with adequate nutrition is more likely to fail under both stresses simultaneously.

July to September 2026: The Price Begins to Move

This is the period when retail prices start to respond to what was set in motion in spring.

July: The first price increases become visible in processed categories. Bakery, pasta, cooking oils. These use flour and vegetable oils derived from the 2025 harvest, so the full effect has not yet arrived, but the supply chain is already adjusting prices upward in anticipation. Manufacturers are not waiting for the harvest data. They are pricing in the risk.

August: The seasonal fresh produce window narrows. UK domestic production is at its peak for the year, which provides some buffer, but imported produce is already more expensive. The August retail price data begins to show the directional move clearly. Not yet at crisis level, but the trend is established and upward.

September: The price acceleration becomes consistent across categories. The market has now had three months of growing season data. The anticipated yield reduction is priced into wholesale markets. Food price inflation data for September will show a marked step up from the previous months. This is price anticipation, not yet the harvest effect.

October to November 2026: The Harvest Confirms the Problem

This is the pivotal period. The 2026 Northern Hemisphere harvest arrives, and the reduced yield becomes real in commercial channels.

October: Wheat, barley, oilseeds. The volume coming into commercial channels is measurably lower than it would have been without the fertiliser shock and El Niño. Wholesale prices adjust upward to clear the market. The reduced supply is now a commercial fact, not a projection.

November: The harvest data is confirmed. Agricultural ministries and trading houses have their numbers. The global supply picture for the 2026-2027 marketing year is now clear. The market understands the scale of the reduction. Prices at wholesale are now elevated and structurally sustained, not volatile.

December 2026: The first retail products made from the 2026 harvest begin to appear on shelves. Bread, flour, pasta, cooking oils, processed foods of all kinds. The price premium is embedded in the supply chain. Retailers are paying more for their inputs, and that flows through to the consumer in the first quarter of 2027.

January to April 2027: The Peak Arrives

This is when the food price crisis becomes undeniable at the supermarket checkout.

January 2027: The processed output from the disrupted 2026 harvest reaches retail in its fullest volume. The food price peak in early 2027 is the mechanical consequence of decisions made in spring 2026. No policy decision made in 2026 or 2027 can prevent it. Only the distribution of its costs can be managed.

February to March: The seasonal fresh produce window is at its narrowest. UK domestic production is at its annual low. The country is most dependent on imported produce at exactly the moment when the global supply is most constrained and most expensive. The combination creates the sharpest price pressure of the year.

April: The food price peak for the 2026-2027 season is reached. IGD was forecasting 8%+ food price inflation by June 2026. That forecast was made before the full El Niño damage was reported. The actual peak in spring 2027 is likely to be higher. For certain categories, the increase from 2025 baselines will be extraordinary.

Spring and Summer 2027: The Worst-Case Countries

The food price peak in the UK will be severe by historical standards. In the most exposed countries, it will be catastrophic.

Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South Asia, and food-import-dependent Gulf states will face the most acute pressure. The death toll from hunger and malnutrition will be significant and measurable. The famines that arrive in 2027 are not unpredictable. They are the mechanical consequence of a disrupted 2026 growing season hitting food systems that had no reserve capacity.

The UK will not experience famine. It will experience the highest grocery bills in living memory. These are not equivalent, and it is worth being clear about the difference while the worst is still concentrated in the most exposed countries.

The 2027 Growing Season: The Open Question

Whether the food price peak resolves in 2027 or extends into 2028 depends on what happens with the 2027 growing season.

If fertiliser prices remain elevated: Farmers in the Northern Hemisphere plant the 2027 crop in spring 2027 under the same cost pressure. They apply less nitrogen again. The 2027 harvest is also reduced. The food price peak extends.

If fertiliser supply normalises: The market adjusts. Prices begin to normalise from late 2027. The food price crisis was a two-year event, not a permanent state.

The determining factor is Hormuz. If the Strait of Hormuz reopens and the fertiliser supply chain normalises, the pressure eases. If the disruption persists through 2027, the second year of reduced harvests makes the structural problem much worse. The food system does not simply snap back when the crisis ends.

When It Becomes Undeniable

The food price crisis is already running. It is not a risk. It is a mechanical process that was set in motion in spring 2026 and that will produce its results through 2027.

The question is not whether it happens. The question is when it becomes impossible for the media and political class to ignore.

My estimate: the spring of 2027. That is when the food price data becomes unmissable, when the supermarket bill becomes a household-level story, and when the political conversation about food poverty finally arrives in the places where it should have started in 2025.

By then, the decisions that should have been made in 2025 and 2026 will be described as missed opportunities. They will not be described as impossibilities, because they were not impossible. They were just not made.

What This Means for Planning

If you are a household and you are thinking about the food price timeline, here is the honest version:

Now (June to August 2026): Prices are rising but not yet at peak. This is the time to build a small buffer in shelf-stable categories if you have the storage and the means. This is not panic buying. It is sensible forward planning for a known future cost increase.

Autumn 2026: The directional move is established. Prices are materially higher than they were. Budget pressure is real for lower-income households. The support mechanisms that should have been designed in 2025 are not in place, and they will not appear fast enough to prevent hardship.

2027: The peak year. The food bill for a typical household will be significantly higher than it was in 2025. The distributional question, who pays the cost, will be the central political argument.

The food price crisis is not a prediction. It is a description of a process that is already running. The trajectory is known. The question is what you do with that information between now and when the consequences become undeniable.

This site does not offer financial advice. It offers analysis.