Decoding Performance to Uncover Growth
A Look at the Food and Beverage Industry in 2018
At the beginning of 2015, we declared that the U.S. packaged foods industry was at a major crossroads. In the years prior to this, many of the leading companies in packaged food and beverage had been underperforming in U.S. topline growth. Of those food and beverage companies that were keeping up with the sector growth, many did so through large structural acquisitions and/or through price increases.
As 2018 began, we saw a strong consumer economy in play with the majority of public food and beverage companies having decidedly chosen to embrace premium brands. Only two of the top public companies chose to do otherwise. They stand alone in an industry that has embraced the reality, and the profitability, of premium offerings in a complex food culture where “mass-market” brands fundamentally can no longer serve all segments of the population.
In Decoding Performance to Uncover Growth, we will explore in more detail:
- how portfolios are performing
- key considerations on the path to sustainable growth
- different growth strategies your organization should employ based on your position today
In any case, today’s successful food and beverage companies need to become brand builders again, not just financially adept brand extenders.
Additional resources:
Hartbeat Exec: U.S. Packaged Food at a Crossroads … download
Assessing the long-term outlook for the packaged food and beverage industry requires looking beneath topline sector and category trends.
Understanding the Future Market Potential of Trends … download
Spotting a trend is one thing, finding market potential in trends is quite another. In Understanding the Future Market Potential of Trends, we share our approach to identifying trends with a sharp focus on how your organization can monetize those trends, which relies on being able to execute at the product level via innovation or acquisition.