2024 Consumer Products Industry Outlook
Strategies to achieve profitable volume
While winning approaches to 2024 may revolve around fundamentals like price, volume and mix, consumer products leaders will also likely confront newer challenges like generative AI, weight-loss drugs or emerging regulations. Learn more in our 2024 consumer products industry outlook.
Report preview — 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 favourable tailwinds for the industry in recent years, executives’ stress levels today are no surprise. Record inflation, supply chain issues, labour 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 behaviours. 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.
Specific actions set profitable growth CPG companies apart
So, what sets these 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
- Prioritising ESG
To take a deeper dive into these strategies and help position your company for profitable growth, download the full report.
“The year 2024 will likely be characterised by slower economic growth than in 2023 and slower consumer spending growth. Yet it will probably be the last year of monetary policy tightening by major central banks. It is reasonable to expect a rebound starting in 2025. For global consumer products companies, it may make sense to focus on the longer term.”
- Dr Ira Kalish, Chief Global Economist, Deloitte
Read the complete consumer product industry economic outlook from Dr. Ira Kalish, Chief Global Economist, by downloading the 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. Survey questions were developed through an analysis of trending topics found in company communications and disclosures using an AI-assisted analytics tool, as well as through internal surveys and interviews with Deloitte client leaders in each consumer market. Finally, we conducted a financial analysis of consumer products companies in the top 30th percentile of performance based on three-year average total shareholder return, return on assets and economic margin productivity as well as three-year revenue and EBITDA growth to ensure they fit our profitable growth profile.
