Circana's Demand Signals report provides a comprehensive picture of how shifting consumer behavior impacts the U.S. consumer packaged goods sector. Gain timely, data-backed insights that help support critical business decisions.
Key highlights from this period's report:
Volume and/or unit growth remains elusive as consumer pressures continue: Consumer confidence remained low moving into early October. With energy costs elevated, consumers remain cautious with retail F&B, foodservice, and non-food CPG seeing declines in volume, traffic and/or units in the last four weeks. General Merchandise was the exception, seeing unit growth in recent weeks spurred by toys (led by demand for squishies), early promotions ahead of October’s promotion days and shoppers buying more on an as-needed basis.
Produce improves, but still weighs on volumes while shifting eating occasions: Declines in produce remain a contributor to softer volumes, as salads/leafy greens and soft fruits are still feeling the effects of the Cyclospora outbreak from mid-July. While improving, the produce disruption reshapes consumer demand, with shoppers shifting fresh occasions to a variety of other options.
CPG price inflation continues to moderate as product mix drives gains: Supported in part by slowing price growth in high inflation areas such as beef and coffee, item pricing growth in F&B continues to inch down, growing +0.9% in the latest four weeks as product mix contributes +0.8% to an overall 1.7% increase in price/mix, down from a 1.9% in the third quarter. Also on the Non-Food CPG side, item price inflation remains below 1% on average. Product mix shifts averaged +4% in non-food CPG, driving growth as units decline and demonstrating an even strong drive for quality over quantity in these products.
The widening gap between online and physical-store performance: Digital growth contrasts with continued pressure in physical stores, making channel performance an important distinction within otherwise-soft CPG demand.
