CHICAGO -- The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry has been searching for growth for the past several years due to the challenging economy and conservative shopper spending. Last year was no exception.
Driving growth continued to be a challenge for the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry in 2015, according to IRI’s latest Times & Trends report, Taking Stock of CPG Past & Future: Gear Up Now for a Year of Growth. Volume sales continued to slide, and dollar sales growth was fed largely by inflationary pricing trends.
When looking across channels, mass merchandisers and supercenters posted sharper-than-average declines and the club channel showed some resilience. The grocery and drug channels held volume flat, outperforming the industry average of negative 1.7%.
The grocery channel continues to capture the lion’s share of total CPG spending at 43%, while club seized 11%, drug took 7%, mass/super picked up 4% and dollar netted 2%. Sales momentum continued to be slow across CPG aisles. Performance was weakest in the frozen-food sector, where unit sales declined 1.5%, and strongest in beverages, where unit sales increased 2.9%. Growth was weak in non-food departments. The tobacco sector was boosted by electronic smoking products, which grew 23.9% for the year, and the health care department grew 2.1% thanks to the latest new products that help consumers tackle common ailments and conditions, such as colds, allergies and weight control.
Private-label share of overall CPG spending changed very little during 2015 and remained relatively flat at the store level. Some CPG categories that did show some notable changes included refrigerated meats, with a 3.2% unit sales increase, and fresh eggs, with a 3% increase.
Chicago-based IRI is a leading provider of data, predictive analytics and insights that help CPG, over-the-counter (OTC) healthcare organizations, retailers and media companies grow their businesses. With the largest repository of purchase, media, social, causal and loyalty data, all integrated on an on-demand cloud-based technology platform, IRI helps to guide its more than 5,000 clients around the world to remain relevant, capture market share, connect with consumers and deliver market-leading growth.
Tomorrow: Growth Opportunities for 2016
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