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Global food expenditure patterns diverge between low-income and high-income countries

Nature Food volume 5, pages 592–602 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Globalization, income growth and changing cultural trends are believed to prompt consumers in low-income countries to adopt the more affluent diet of high-income countries. This study investigates the convergence of food expenditure patterns worldwide, focusing on total food expenditure, raw food categories and ultra-processed foods and beverages across more than 90 countries over the past decades. Contrary to prior belief, we find that food expenditure patterns of lower-income countries do not universally align with those of higher-income nations. This trend is evident across most raw food categories and ultra-processed foods and beverages, as the income level of a country continues to play a crucial role in determining its food expenditure patterns. Importantly, expenditure patterns offer estimates rather than a precise idea of dietary intake, reflecting consumer choices shaped by economic constraints rather than exact dietary consumption.

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Fig. 1: Average budget share on total food and stimulants and each category across different income-group countries in 2019.
Fig. 2: Budget share on total food and stimulants and each category across different clubs or groups over the years.
Fig. 3: Geographical distribution of clubs or groups in each food category.

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Data availability

All food expenditure data and other socio-economic factors used in this study are available on Euromonitor (https://www.euromonitor.com/usa) by subscription. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The code is available upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the project founded by the US Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FX22TA-10960R022, W. Li).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China

    Wanqi Liang

  2. Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Pathmanathan Sivashankar, Yunei Hua & Wenying Li

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  1. Wanqi Liang
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  2. Pathmanathan Sivashankar
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Contributions

W. Li conceptualized and supervised the project. W. Liang analysed the data. W. Liang and P.S. collected the data and drafted the paper. Y.H. created the figures. All authors contributed to revising and editing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wanqi Liang or Wenying Li.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Food thanks Nektarios Michail and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1–15.

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Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Statistical source data for the pie and bar plots.

Source Data Fig. 2

Statistical source data for the line plots.

Source Data Fig. 3

Statistical source data for the maps.

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Liang, W., Sivashankar, P., Hua, Y. et al. Global food expenditure patterns diverge between low-income and high-income countries. Nat Food 5, 592–602 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01012-y

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