FMCG Q2 Results: Five Patterns That Matter

Last month UK shoppers spent over £250 million more on promotions than a year earlier, while total grocery sales grew just 1%. But how much of that is new business? Matilda explains the seven sources every promoted sale comes from, and why only a small share is genuinely new demand. She then looks at Lidl's £75 million Christmas loyalty push, PepsiCo's price cuts of up to 15%, the rise of Tesco Finest and Tesco's new influencer ads. And she ends with the question every commercial team should take into its next review: how much of it would we have sold anyway?FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

UK grocery sales grew two percent in the four weeks to 6 September, with inflation at two point three percent. Branded goods outpaced own label for only the second time this year, but promotional spending rose seven percent, suggesting volume recovery is largely promotion-driven rather than a genuine pricing recovery. Research confirms a barbell polarisation in US FMCG, with mainstream brands losing ground to premium and value tiers simultaneously. Unilever's Wonder Wash expansion into India and Brazil demonstrates a disciplined model for premiumisation across markets.FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

At this week's Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference in Boston, one theme kept coming up: the next wave of growth will not come from price alone. Matilda looks at how Reckitt refused to match 80 per cent off promotions in dishwashing, and how Danone returned Activia to growth by changing what it stands for. She also asks why Mondelez's Biscoff success still needs checking for where its volume really comes from. Along the way she covers Coca-Cola's pack architecture, price sensitivity after inflation, and three questions every RGM leader should take into their next leadership meeting. FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

We reviewed the latest quarterly results, investor presentations and management commentary to see what they reveal about the direction of Revenue Growth Management.Now that all the main Q2 earnings calls have taken place, eight trends stand out.  From more selective pricing and greater use of price investment, to the growing role of Price Pack Architecture, promotion ROI, portfolio design and retailer economics.In this episode of FMCG Weekly, we look at these trends, the companies behind them, and what they mean in practical terms for RGM teams.FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

Q2 results confirm that FMCG's growth engine has shifted from price to volume, with Unilever posting its best volume quarter since 2010 and Coca-Cola growing unit cases five percent. But the funding differs sharply. Most companies finance volume through productivity programmes, Coca-Cola and L'Oréal self-fund through brand strength, while Essity trades value for volume. PepsiCo's failed American price cuts prove that discounts alone do not create demand. With the consumer world split between a squeezed America and buoyant emerging markets, volume quality, not quantity, is the industry's new scoreboard.FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

The World Cup delivered FMCG sales uplifts across markets, but the underlying sources differed dramatically. UK beer and supermarket sales surged, France saw match-dependent spikes, US growth concentrated in host cities, Germany benefited from extreme heat, Norway recorded strong beer growth, while Dutch campaigns added little corrected market growth. The key RGM lesson is that uplift is not automatically incremental or profitable. Sales may come from category expansion, competitive switching, retail or channel switching, cannibalisation, subsidised baseline, value upgrading or stockpiling. Businesses should therefore evaluate where growth came from, not simply how much they sold, before declaring an activation successful. FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

Heineken appointed a new CEO. It is Rafael Oliveira’s and this episode examines JDE Peet’s turnaround under his leadership as a case study in modern FMCG revenue management. Facing severe coffee inflation, Oliveira shifted the business away from promotional dependency, range proliferation and volume chasing, toward disciplined pricing, portfolio pruning, stronger brands and local price-pack architecture. The headline profit improvement looked modest, but the source of business P&L shows a spectacular clean-up of subsidisation, stockpiling and cannibalisation. The lesson for FMCG leaders is clear: value comes from defending profitable baseline demand and investing only in truly incremental growth, not merely protecting reported sales volumes during inflationary pressure and channel volatility.FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

This week on FMCG Weekly: how to win the World Cup. The tournament grows the battleground categories substantially, but the growth comes from base demand, not your promotion, and because everyone discounts at once, the deals largely cancel. You promote not to win, but to avoid the decremental loss of sitting out. The real opportunity is the open goal: adjacent categories like dips, mixers and ice that ride the same occasion uncontested. Capture demand before it perishes, load the pantry before kick-off, know whether the event is yours to win, and spend where it grows the brand, not merely defends it. FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

This week examines the rise of personalised pricing across FMCG and grocery, and the regulatory and trust pressures now constraining it. We separate rules-based, dynamic and personalised pricing, and explain why retailers route personalisation covertly through loyalty schemes rather than visible shelf surges. We cover the United Kingdom's dual-pricing model and the competition authority's verdict, then contrast approaches at Albert Heijn, REWE and Carrefour, and the supplier response from Nestlé, Coca-Cola and a new cross-industry measurement alliance. We close with tightening regulation on both continents, the centrality of consumer trust, and the coming world of double-sided algorithmic commerce between retailer and shopper agents.FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management

Q1 2026 marked a turning point for global FMCG. Across twenty-one of the largest players — from Nestlé and Unilever to AB InBev, PepsiCo and Reckitt — pricing has decelerated and volume is back as the principal growth engine. The new RGM frontier is mix: premium brands, pack architecture, energy and zero-sugar variants, and channel shifts to out-of-home. PepsiCo's Frito-Lay cut US snack prices for the first time in years. Mondelēz exposed the ceiling on chocolate pricing. Emerging markets are now growing two-to-three times faster than developed. And with cost inflation returning in H2, a more disciplined pricing cycle is coming. Click to see the infographic with a summary of all Q1 earnings reports. FMCG Weekly - News and trends curated by Accuris, the leading independent consultancy for revenue growth management