The Stockout

Most food emissions come from ingredients, but the impact of packaging redesign is more immediate.

Automation benefits go beyond productivity and extend into food and worker safety.

Walmart and Target look to save shoppers from the indignity of checkout counters

Mixed commentary suggests that further ticket revisions will be ‘more surgical.’

TreeHouse Foods gains share despite lingering supply chain issues.

In addition to sugar, other regulatory updates pertain to sodium, whole grains and flavored milk.

Commodity prices have come down, but manufacturers say their costs are still rising.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a 60-day notice of its plans to conduct research on front-of-package nutrition labels.

CPGs’ worst nightmare For certain CPG categories, I would argue that the worst thing that could happen isn’t a recession but consumers getting religion on healthy eating and avoiding the center of the grocery store altogether. Healthy eating aside, earlier this week The Wall Street Journal highlighted a second concern that may be gaining traction […]

Sugar reduction startups The consumer-packaged-goods-related article that I found most interesting this week was in FoodBusinessNews and it described three startups focused on developing very innovative sugar reduction alternatives. Here is a quick synopsis of those companies: Growing concern about sugar and salt intake Of course, there are easy ways for consumers to cut sugar. […]

Growing evidence of ‘shopper rebellion’ Elasticities, or the negative change in sales volume in response to rising prices, has been one of the main topics in the CPG industry in the past year. Despite two consecutive years of steeply rising prices, including last year’s CPG price growth of upward of 15% or more in many […]

Deceleration in Constellation Brands’ shipment growth and disappointing margin outlook Constellation Brands, the owner of the Corona and Modelo beer brands and various wine and spirits brands, such as Svedka Vodka, was among the first CPG companies to report earnings in the new year and it proved to be a controversial quarter. Shares declined 10% […]

Sick of earnings season yet? It’s this time of the quarter when I miss my old position as a sell-side stock analyst the least. For those looking to get caught up on earnings, there is plenty of coverage on FreightWaves. For freight carriers, the themes so far have been loosening market conditions and the lack […]

High butter prices expected to persist Butter is currently second only to eggs for the title of most inflationary food item, up 25% year over year, compared to 13%-14% for the entire grocery category. Inventories of cold butter at the end of July were the lowest since 2017. Those stocks are usually built up early […]

Industrial carbon dioxide shortage The industrial CO2 shortage is a supply chain issue that stands to impact the consumer packaged goods industry heavily with food and beverage manufacturing representing approximately 70% of the industrial CO2 usage. It is used to make beer, soda and sparkling water taste like themselves. It is also used to preserve […]

Consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs) and retailers are among the largest intermodal shippers. Today’s edition of The Stockout highlights data relevant for shippers that utilize rail intermodal or are looking to move in that direction for transportation savings and/or to promote dedication to environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives.  Will there truly be a peak […]

Has CPG ingredient inflation peaked?  I can only speculate whether the recent pullback in commodity prices will continue, but with crude oil off its high, crop prices well off their highs, many supply chain issues being worked through, retailers discounting prices to clear bloated inventories and the freight spot markets under pressure, inflation may not […]

General Mills’ supply chain disruptions to persist At a Wall Street conference earlier this month, Jonathan Nudi, General Mills’ president of North American retail, said, “We’re seeing 10 times the number of disruptions in our supply chain from an ingredient standpoint coming into our plants than we ever experienced before. And this gets really challenging […]

Kellogg splitsville As I am sure you’ve seen, the big CPG news Tuesday was that Kellogg will become three separate companies. Management will focus on the snacks/international business (I’ll call it Snack Co.) and plans to spin off the North American cereal business (Cereal Co.) and the plant-based businesses (Plant Co.) into separate entities, with […]

Ranked 39th on the Transport Topics list of top brokerage firms, Axle Logistics takes a consultative and streamlined approach to your shipping needs. Email sales@axlelogistics.com to connect with the team today!  Bipartisan agreement that rail service is poor  As described by FreightWaves’ Joanna Marsh, a group of 19 senators from 13 states wrote a letter […]