World Perspectives

U.S. Consumer Food Spending Trends

U.S. consumer spending patterns have undergone several significant shifts since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the food industry was no different. Since the pandemic, consumers have increased spending on food-away-from-home (FAFH) purchases dramatically while simultaneously cutting back on food-at-home (FAH). In this article, WPI attempts to quantify these changes and infer what they will mean for the grocery and restaurant industries – and those that supply them – for the rest of 2025.  For this analysis, WPI used the USDA ERS’s “Monthly sales of food, with taxes and tips, for all purchasers” dataset from the Food Expenditure Series and focused on the 2010-2024 period. To avoid obfuscating the results, data f...

Related Articles
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Markets Fall on WASDE and Trade War

Today’s March USDA WASDE report did nothing to temper the bearish mood in both commodity and equity markets. Volume was light ahead of the WASDE release and stayed that way. While corn and soybeans traded mostly in the green ahead of the report, wheat had no reason to be bullish. There wa...

soy-oilseeds

WASDE Soybeans

Soybeans: USDA’s March estimates for the U.S. 2024/25 season are unchanged this month. The season-average soybean price is projected at $9.95 per bushel, down 15 cents from last month. The price estimates for meal and oil prices are unchanged at $310 per short ton and 43 cents per pound...

feed-grains

WASDE Corn

Corn: USDA’s March estimates for the U.S. 2024/25 season are unchanged from last month – and the season-average corn price received by farmers is unchanged at $4.35 per bushel. USDA’s global corn outlook is for higher foreign corn production: Increases in India, Russia, and Uk...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Markets Fall on WASDE and Trade War

Today’s March USDA WASDE report did nothing to temper the bearish mood in both commodity and equity markets. Volume was light ahead of the WASDE release and stayed that way. While corn and soybeans traded mostly in the green ahead of the report, wheat had no reason to be bullish. There wa...

soy-oilseeds

WASDE Soybeans

Soybeans: USDA’s March estimates for the U.S. 2024/25 season are unchanged this month. The season-average soybean price is projected at $9.95 per bushel, down 15 cents from last month. The price estimates for meal and oil prices are unchanged at $310 per short ton and 43 cents per pound...

feed-grains

WASDE Corn

Corn: USDA’s March estimates for the U.S. 2024/25 season are unchanged from last month – and the season-average corn price received by farmers is unchanged at $4.35 per bushel. USDA’s global corn outlook is for higher foreign corn production: Increases in India, Russia, and Uk...

wheat

WASDE Wheat

Wheat: USDA reduced U.S. wheat exports for the 2024/25 season by 15 million bushels and increased imports by 10 million bushels.  The result is that U.S. ending stocks are raised 25 million bushels to 819 million, up 18 percent from last year. Thus, the U.S. season-average farm price is re...

Image
From WPI Consulting

Forecasting developments in production agriculture

On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.

Search World Perspectives

Sign In to World Perspectives

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up