2005 was a remarkable year for the CPG industry.
A devastating hurricane season displaced consumers, closed retailers’ doors, drove huge demand swings across categories and resulted in sizable price increases across key ingredients, such as sugar. The hurricanes further increased high fuel costs, which strained budgets among low income consumers and pushed packaging and distribution costs sky high.
Add to this mix the new trans fat labeling requirements that went into effect January 2006 and stimulated massive product reformulations across food categories in preparation. And, let’s not forget the intense pricing pressure that all categories are experiencing with value channel expansion. Growth within this environment was indeed challenging, and total CPG industry sales increased only 1.6% across food, drug mass channels including Wal-Mart. But, what was perhaps most remarkable about this past year is that many categories, brands and retailers did grow within this environment – largely through innovation.
This report is intended to help CPG manufacturers and retailers see market opportunities and risks by benchmarking performance versus the industry, act on these insights with speed and confidence and win at the shelf.