2023 Consumer Products Industry Outlook

State of the consumer products industry

Feeling a little frazzled? Whether you are an executive with a food and beverage, household goods, personal care, or apparel company, seven in 10 respondents say their job is more stressful today than it was five years ago. Despite favorable tailwinds for the industry in recent years, executives’ stress levels today are no surprise. Record inflation, supply chain issues, labor shortages, global conflicts, climate change, and a potential recession—each in isolation is challenging. Combined, they are overwhelming.

And consumers' heads are likely spinning. Their context keeps changing and with it their behaviors. Major demographic, political, environmental, technological, and cultural shifts are underway that forecast more change to come. Executives in our survey think keeping up with the changing consumer will be one of their greatest challenges.

Managing to grow sales and profit margins while chasing the changing consumer in an inflationary and challenging economic environment is no easy feat.

Economic outlook for the consumer products industry

As consumer product companies struggle to obtain the inputs and commodities they require, they also face a changing geopolitical and business environment. This involves governmental restrictions on technology transfer, fraught relations between the world’s greatest powers, and increased regionalization of supply chains. It also involves new efforts by global companies to reinforce supply chain resilience and redundancy, partly by diversifying supply chain processes and no longer depending on just one country or supplier. As a result, we may begin to see a consumer products industry emerge that is, in many ways, more diverse than before.

So, what sets leading companies apart?

We find that profitable growth leaders act and invest differently in five distinct areas:

• Embracing the changing consumer
• Going for market share
• Creatively transforming
• Driving data through supply chains
• Prioritizing ESG

To take a deeper dive into these strategies and help position your company for profitable growth, download the full report.

About the report

Deloitte surveyed 150 consumer products executives from an industry-proportional mix of food and beverage, household goods, personal care, and apparel companies in November 2022. Most of the companies are multinationals, all with more than $500 million in revenue. We conducted additional surveys with executives in Japan and China (50 in each country) to expand our view into those unique consumer markets.