Why are Caribbean food prices still rising even though inflation is slowing?

Headline inflation across most Caribbean economies has decelerated meaningfully from the 2022-2023 peaks. Yet households continue to report that their grocery bills are not moving in the same direction. Both observations are true at the same time, and the reasons are structural rather than cyclical.

The first reason is that the regional food basket is dominated by imports. Across CARICOM, the share of food consumption that is imported sits between 60 percent and 90 percent depending on the country, with Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia, and the Bahamas near the upper end. When import prices rise, domestic food prices rise. When import prices stabilise, domestic food prices do not fall to the same degree — because the costs that sit between the port and the supermarket shelf, particularly shipping, wholesale margins, and last-mile distribution, have been re-set at higher levels and have not retreated.

The second reason is shipping. Container shipping costs from major source markets to Caribbean ports surged during the pandemic and never fully normalised. Disruptions in the Red Sea and along the Panama Canal added new volatility through 2024 and 2025. For a region that depends on transshipment hubs in Kingston, Caucedo, and Cartagena, even regional rerouting decisions translate into per-container costs that flow through to the retail price of imported rice, chicken, cooking oil, and processed goods.

The third reason is currency. Several Caribbean currencies are pegged to the US dollar, which has remained relatively strong against the currencies of major food-exporting economies, but the Jamaican dollar, the Guyanese dollar, and the Haitian gourde have all experienced multi-year weakness. A weaker local currency means imported food is more expensive in local-currency terms regardless of what is happening to global commodity prices.

The fourth reason is retail concentration. Most Caribbean countries have a small number of large supermarket chains and a small number of major food importers. When wholesale costs ease, the savings do not automatically reach consumers. Competition is limited, switching costs are high, and the regulatory tools to compel pass-through are weak. Households experience this as prices that rise quickly when costs rise and fall slowly, or not at all, when costs fall.

Governments across the region have responded with targeted measures — duty waivers on specific staples, food vouchers, school meal expansions — but the structural mix of import dependence, shipping volatility, currency exposure, and retail concentration is the longer story. Until any of those four levers shifts meaningfully, the gap between headline inflation and household food costs will continue to feel wider than the official numbers suggest.