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As CAGNY 2025 wrapped up in Bonnet Creek, Fla., the industry lingers on the question, ‘When will the CPG industry see a return to the moderate volume growth patterns of the pre-COVID era?’ The pandemic-influenced inflationary era of 2020-2023 seems to be long behind us. In the last 24 months, the sentiment has primarily been, 'Without inflationary pricing-related growth, are we headed for a long-term stagnancy in consumer goods growth?'
This graphic released by PwC reveals a more profound underlying sentiment below.
As senior leaders took the stage to discuss the health of the brands they represent and why the industry outlook may be challenged, a critical question emerged: Have consumer goods companies been reliant on inflation-related price increases in the last few years while being challenged by the lack of underlying volume growth and the needs of value-conscious consumers in today’s era?
While the headline figures, forecasts and sentiment appeared strong, a deeper analysis suggests a more complex picture—volume growth forecasts were limited, frequently hovering near zero or even declining in some categories. The implications are significant. Here are a few clear themes that emerged.
What’s working:
Brand strength: It’s clear that some of the largest consumer goods brands in the world are returning to the age-old fundamentals of driving value through brand promises. These can include aspects such as nutrition, satiety, consumption needs, and brand recognition. However, while the biggest global consumer brands still exhibit significant scale, this graphic from Bain & Company illustrates the growth of premium products and value-oriented market share, which we will address later in this article.
Portfolio Adaptation: Some companies are investing in functional nutrition, affordability tiers, and sustainability-focused products that align with changing consumer preferences. GLP-1 compliance via brand identifiers is also something new we expect to see. New forms and pack sizes via modern price pack architecture models. A few brands were very clear that consumers should anticipate seeing the same product across various price points purely based on size and servings.
Media leverage: There seems to be a universal investment growth in media and underlying brand-related media content development. With brand equity strength being paramount, most brands are investing and have indicated trends to continue investing in driving household penetration via mass and scaled media. Several scaled brands showcased linear programming-based advertising clips and a return to reliance on audience reach, a dependence on upper funnel impressions vs. the last few years’ lower funnel approach of retail media investment growth.
Omnichannel and e-commerce: The health and beauty care sector appears to have largely taken the lead in digitally reaching consumers, favoring social media channels and retail media to boost e-commerce sales, along with a strong understanding of how to drive digitally influenced sales and encourage repeat purchases.
Supply chain resilience: While the industry barely spoke to the health of supply chains in their ecosystems, our observation is very few analysts asked questions on this topic, eluding that perhaps we might finally be past the significant challenges seen over the pandemic except a select few areas that do not give cause for concern barring any commodity volatility in the marketplace (the exception repeated often: cocoa prices).
Strategic M&A: There is a clear consensus that strategic M&A is the way to drive growth. Whether it involves adjacent categories, increased portfolios in existing categories, altogether new categories, or new shapes and forms, this is the way forward.
Areas of opportunity: The industry is clearly looking for opportunities to ‘jump start’ moderate growth again. At the same time, patterns are demonstrated in the underlying presentations.
Find the collection of publicly available presentations hosted by The CPGGUYS here and listen to their podcast summarizing the event.
The graphic below by PwC shows challenged margins, increasing internal operational costs, and revenue growth below the pre-pandemic period.
Brand strength: While brands clearly indicated the strength and scale of their equity, most showed a loss of household penetration (again, while the numbers remain high, there is a decline). We did not observe a clear plan or set of tactics connected to drive increased household penetration outside higher media investments, references to existing brand values and M&A. The lack of applying demand science and reference to specific consumer traffic driving tactics was apparent. The question remains: what role does retail play in driving traffic vs. brands?
Portfolio adaptation: While most or several brands spoke to portfolio reshaping and finding the same product in various pack sizes and price points, there was very limited reference to OPP (opening price points). What’s evident in the earlier chart referencing to private label share growth is missing clearly represented tactics from brands to combat this challenge. Our take is that this will be a longer-term solve due to the structural economics of margin expectations set by brands pre-pandemic, an adjustment upward during the pandemic, investments in capital and other rising internal costs, holding back consumer desired OPPs.
Media leverage: While it’s clear that there is increased sentiment to invest more in media and consumer-driving vehicles, the health and beauty sector remains a level above food and beverage brands in showcasing straightforward tactics with social media, influencers, full-funnel marketing or retail media. We did not observe mention of the leverage that retail media provides from food and beverage brands. This is a clear opportunity given the meteoric rise of retail media networks and the growth of investments in this space over the pandemic.
The authors of this article, Think Blue, are offering an executive education course in strategic partnership with Cornell University to learn the importance of this channel, meet retail media networks, and shape its future. You can find the course materials and instructions for joining here.
Omnichannel and e-commerce: as consumers move to increased digital penetration and browse and shop more online, sometimes even getting introduced to a new SKU online, food and beverage again did not refer to the newly developed strength here over the pandemic. With e-commerce penetration for this sector above 10 % of volume sales, sustaining a growth channel with the right behaviors is essential. Health & beauty again seemed very strong, from direct-to-consumer models, loyalty programs and the investments and knowledge of retail-based click-and-collect models. The caution here is the growth of pureplay channels like Amazon and third-party marketplaces and scaled brands' reliance on returning to pre-pandemic instore growth driving tactics via national media investments of scale.
Final Thoughts: Rebuilding consumer trust and volume growth
CAGNY 2025 underscored a growing reliance on pricing adjustments, cost-cutting, and portfolio reshaping based growth models.
The critical question remains: Are brands driving consumer demand, or are they simply offsetting costs onto and watching an increasingly cautious shopper adjust household consumption?
To succeed in the next decade, brands must focus on affordability, omnichannel excellence, and personalization while adopting learning curves in digital and social technologies —not just to proactively shape consumer demand.
The key question for leadership teams is: Are consumer goods shaping the future of consumer behavior based on emerging needs, or are they merely responding to them and missing out on valuable growth opportunities?
