The FAO Food Price Index is the average of five commodity group price indices weighted by export shares
Background
The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities.
It consists of the average of five commodity group price indices weighted by the average export shares of each of the groups over 2014-2016.
The five groups are cereals, vegetable oils, dairy, meat and sugar, and the FAO Cereal Price Index, the FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index, the FAO Dairy Price Index, the FAO Meat Price Index and the FAO Sugar Price Index are published alongside the headline index.
The index is published monthly, and FAO gives the monthly release dates for the whole year in advance.
Nominal and real indices are published from 1990 onwards, monthly and annual, with annual series available from 1961 onwards.
FAO separately runs a Food Price Monitoring and Analysis tool for export quotations and national retail and wholesale prices of foods.
In plain words
FFPI FAO Food Price Index — FAO's monthly measure of international food commodity prices.
Export share — A group's share of total food exports, used here to decide how much weight it carries in the index.
Nominal and real index — A nominal index uses prices as they are; a real index adjusts them for broader price changes.