Global Food Prices Surge as Inflation Spreads

SÃO PAULO—Earlier this year, Celia Matos, a single mother from São Paulo’s Paraisópolis favela, could afford to buy the basics to feed her family. Now, she says, with the price of meat and other foods up by 30%, she often goes to bed hungry so there will be enough rice and beans for her four children.

“It’s humiliating,” said Ms. Matos, 41. “Sometimes I just want to cry…I buy gas to cook and then I can’t afford food, or if I buy food then I don’t have money to buy soap.” She said she can’t even afford the butcher shop’s leftover bags of bones.