Antigua and Barbuda Above Regional Average for Cost of Healthy Diet, New CARICOM Data Shows

Eating healthily costs significantly more in the Caribbean than in most of the world. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) measures this cost using the cheapest locally available foods across six groups – fruits, vegetables, starches, animal-source foods, legumes, and oils. Across 13 CARICOM member states, the average daily cost reached PPP $5.81 per person in 2024, 30% above the global average of $4.46. All 13 countries exceeded the global benchmark.

Guyana recorded the highest cost at $6.83 per person per day, followed by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ($6.43) and Dominica ($6.36). At the other end, Belize ($4.54), Saint Kitts and Nevis ($5.04) and Saint Lucia ($5.16) recorded the lowest costs, though all three still exceeded the global average.

In between, Haiti ($6.21), Suriname ($6.16) and Jamaica ($6.02) also exceeded the CARICOM average, while Trinidad and Tobago ($5.56) and The Bahamas ($5.54) sat just below it.

Notably, agricultural producers and food importers alike appear at both ends of the range, suggesting that domestic food production alone does not determine the cost of a nutritious diet. Trade logistics, retail market structures and food import dependency likely all play a role.

Source: FAO, FAOSTAT Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD), 2024 data (July 2025 release). Costs are expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars, an international measure that adjusts for price differences between countries to allow for cross-country comparison. PPP figures may not correspond directly to prices at local retail outlets.

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