The International Sugar Organization (ISO) on November 17, 2025 sharply up-revised 2025-26 global sugar output forecast from deficit to surplus, undercutting market prices.
According to this initial revision for the 2025-26 marketing year, the world will have a surplus totaling 1.625 million tonnes.
This sharply contrasts 2024-25’s output, whose latest deficit has halved from 4.879 million tonnes to 2.916 million tonnes.
Leading sugar futures thereby shed between 1.07% (New York’s March deliveries) and 1.81% (London’s white sugar no.5) day-on-day.
This helped the price of the sweetener finally drift from the $0.16-a-pound territory to $0.15/pound on November 17.
Old and New Ports of Call
The bearish outlook rides on gaining output in Asia, including Pakistan, which in the past year has been enjoying shortage and priciness.
Neighbor India meanwhile expects production appreciation by 19% annually, to 34.9 million tonnes. This is per a June 2025 projection by the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories.
A similar glut informs Thailand, with the Thai Sugar Millers Corp recently predicting that 2025-26 production would hike by 5% year-on-year (y-o-y).
The biggest influence however remains Brazil: the national agency Conab on November 4 upped its 2025-26 production estimate by 500,000 tonnes, to 45 million tonnes.
Favoring this projection is increasing sugar processing in the central-south sugar belt by 16.4% y-o-y, to 2.068 million tonnes.
Worldwide, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s May 22 report forecast a 2025-26 sugar output hike by 4.7% y-o-y, to 189.318 million tonnes.
Hence, the ISO had to up its earlier prediction in August of a 2025-26 global sugar deficit of 231,000 tonnes. The sugar body’s projections in the 2024-26 context form the basis of the following stats.
ISO 2024-25/2025/26 Sugar Forecast History Statistics
From 2024 through 2025, the International Sugar Organization (ISO) provided regular reports on 2024-25 and 2025-26 sugar production as follows:
2024-25 Forecast
August 2024: the August forecast reduced the worldwide sugar deficit to 3.58 million tonnes, following the then ongoing Brazil harvest.
November 2024: the ISO projected the global sugar deficit at 2.51 million tonnes, or 1.07 million tonnes down from August’s forecast.
November 2025: a year later, the sugar body’s final 2024-25 deficit stood nearly as the above, at 2.916 million tonnes.
2025/26 Forecast
August 2025: the 2025-26 worldwide sugar deficit prediction reduced to 231,000 tonnes, following gains in India’s kharif cane harvest and Thailand’s uptick processing.
November 2025: on November 17, the ISO sharply upswung the 2025-26 output deficit projection by 1.825 million tonnes, to a 1.625 million-tonne surplus.
November 2025 consumption forecast: the ISO also upped sugar consumption by 0.56%, to 180.142 tonnes, for 2025-2026.