Food prices and supply for 2025

What can catering and foodservice teams expect in 2025 when it comes to produce availability, supply challenges and food inflation?

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Forecasting future food prices and inflation

After a significant period of instability, UK food inflation in 2025 is more settled but is still increasing steadily. As of September 2025, the annual rate of CPI food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation has fallen from March 2023’s high of 19.1%, but the current rate of 5.1% in September 2025 (ONS August 2025 data) is higher than April 2025’s rate of 3.4%.

In April, the IGD was forecasting 2025 food inflation to be between 2.4% and 4.9%, with a mid-point of 3.4%. The BRC anticipated 4.2% food inflation by the end of 2025. However the Food & Drink Federation is now predicting further rises to 5.7% by December 2025.

Interestingly, the World Bank Group is predicting a 9% decrease in 2025 for core global commodities which impacts food prices, rather than food prices themselves. Longer term, some of this may translate into impacts on UK food costs. But the results will be slow to trickle through and are unlikely to be felt in 2025.

allmanhall’s Procurement and Sustainability Director, Mike Meek, revised his forecast in September to say: “Caterers should now budget for 5-6% annual inflation for the remainder of 2025.”

Mike Meek

Procurement and Sustainability Director

What factors are impacting food prices and food inflation?

At a global level...

The inflationary drivers have subsided of late, making the rate of inflation less extreme compared to the highs of March 2023. COVID-19 stressed global food supply chains and raised prices, but this has now largely passed.

The energy and food supply shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when gas prices tripled and electricity prices doubled and impacted global food systems, has now stabilised.

There is now cause for optimism as stable global key food commodity prices have been supported by higher global inventories – i.e. improved supply and greater global resilience to food shortages, creating greater price stability.

Aside from geopolitical factors, our food is vulnerable to climate change. Extreme weather influences crop production, undermining global food security and destabilising economies, threatening food supply and increasing food prices.

The devastating wildfires in Los Angeles in January proved that we can no longer ignore the effects of climate change. Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns due to climate change are intensifying drought conditions in California. The state grows over three-quarters of the USA’s fruits and nuts, and over a third of the country’s vegetables, so more regular or severe droughts could soon impact the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables.

We may think we are immune to such dramatic climatic disasters in the UK, but as our food supply chain is global we absolutely feel these threats to food security and food prices. You can read more about the impact of weather and climate on our food systems here. 2025 may not be the year that we feel such dramatic impacts here, but this doesn’t mean more significant increases won’t be felt thereafter.

Biosecurity risks – even those in other countries – and restrictions on livestock movement and trade has an impact on availability and prices in the UK. In 2025 we expect to see an imminent rise in protein prices, particularly beef and lamb.

Closer to home?

There are also domestic reasons why beef and lamb prices are likely to rise in 2025, namely the reduction of the national herd.

Changes to UK trade impacts food prices. As does the consequences of and response to policies laid out by the UK Government in October 2024’s Budget.

Says allmanhall’s Managing Director, Oliver Hall: “Increases to the national minimum / living wage and employer National Insurance contributions will very quickly force food producers and distributors to recover costs. Increases can therefore be expected to be seen for the rest of 2025.”

allmanhall forecasted April price increases of between 1.5% and 3% made up of ingredient inflation plus cost to serve increases owing to labour costs and are in regular discussions with suppliers regarding minimising these for the benefit of caterers as we go into the remainder of 2025.

Oliver goes on to comment: “It’s fair to note that the 2024 UK Budget contained both challenges and opportunities for the food sector. But on balance the combined effects of these policies will likely be felt in the form of higher food prices in the coming years… choices made today will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of food security and affordability for all.”

You can read more on this here…

What can you do to cope with food inflation?

Whilst around 5% is a figure catering and foodservice teams can realistically forecast for food inflation in 2025, there are things that you can do to make budgets go further and mitigate price increases.

allmanhall’s Client Relations Director, Hayden Hibbert, who was previously the head of a large catering team himself, suggests that “There are three key areas for caterers to focus on when it comes to coping with food inflation: supply chain management; operational processes, and menus.”

Let’s investigate these in more detail…

Supply chain management

If done correctly, supply chain management can be used very effectively to ease food inflation costs in three ways:

Tendering and consolidating your suppliers and deliveries
Reducing your cost to serve
Using range management to achieve more focused buying lists

You can read about supply chain management in more detail here.

Operational practices

Consider revisiting these practices with a real focus on their financial benefit.

Multi and up-skill your team
Address food waste and reduce unnecessary spend – 30% of all food is wasted! That is almost one third of all your food budget going straight in the bin. Get some tips to start reducing your food waste here.
Invest in equipment to drive cost efficiencies and reduce waste.

Recipes and menus

Using smart and effective recipe and menu engineering can make a big difference and have a real impact on food costs. Here are some top tips from allmanhall’s expert team:

Read specific commodity forecasts for the coming year here…

allmanhall are helping catering and foodservice organisations stay in control of food costs in uncertain times.