AI, machine learning centerpieces of Blue Yonder’s supply chain solutions
Numerous acquisitions the past several years bolstered logistics firm’s end-to-end capabilities.
Numerous acquisitions the past several years bolstered logistics firm’s end-to-end capabilities.
New regulations could force CPGs to revise product formulas to eliminate common ingredients.
A proposed revision to FTC regulations would make canceling subscriptions as easy as signing up.
Upcoming revisions are likely to impact CPG ingredients, packaging and labeling.
Amid lower commodity costs, retail CPG prices should stick, leading to margin recovery.
Some supply chain issues remain, but moderating inflation helps margins recover.
Startups aim to help CPGs achieve clean labels while governments revise health regulations.
Production of palm oil, a common CPG ingredient, is associated with deforestation and human rights abuses.
Automation benefits go beyond productivity and extend into food and worker safety.
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.
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 […]
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 […]
On Monday, the Iowa-based truckload carrier acquired several assets from the Contract Freighters Inc. (CFI) portfolio
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 […]
Fleets have been able to find more control over their transportation spend using PTV Route Optimizer’s features designed to suit the specific logistical last-mile delivery needs for CPG items.
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! Retail rout This week saw a rout in retail stocks with shares of Walmart and Target down 21% and 31%, respectively, during the past […]
Numerous companies, including CPG companies, at FreightWaves’ The Future of Supply Chain conference last week highlighted the difficulty of accurately forecasting. We heard that sentiment expressed from numerous companies, including transportation companies and intermediaries as well as CPG companies and other shippers. Basically, market forecasts are almost always too reflective of current market conditions without […]
CPG companies expect continued inflation on transportation costs this year. While there are plenty of signs on the horizon that suggest that a freight recession may be forthcoming, 2022 freight costs for most CPG companies are expected to be higher than they were in 2021. Procter & Gamble and Mondelez are among the major CPG […]
Procter & Gamble highlights the combination of commodity, freight and foreign exchange as having a combined 22% headwind on core EPS in its fiscal 2022 (ending June 30). The company’s organic sales grew 10% in its just-reported fiscal Q3 2022, broken down into pricing, volume and sales mix contributing 5, 3 and 2 points, respectively. […]
On last week’s The Stockout show, I interviewed Fred Hart, partner and creative director of Interact, a branding agency in Boulder, Colorado. Fred works with a wide range of CPG companies on packaging and branding that stands out in crowded fields of products. The show can be seen here. For those without the 26 minutes […]
Supply chain improvement, leading to better on-shelf availability, drove positive variance relative to management’s prior guidance. Shares of General Mills rose 2.5% on Wednesday in a down market. The increase to the company’s full-year earnings guidance (earnings were previously expected to be 2% lower to 1% higher y/y and are now expected to be flat […]
Grocery prices rose 8.6% year-over-year in February. As miserable as the overall 7.9% inflation rate was for most consumers in February, grocery inflation outpaced it, with its highest rate of price growth in 40 years. The February year-over-year increase in grocery inflation exceeded the 7.9% year-over-year growth in January and grocery prices were also up […]
Will we see a depression in Russia, a recession in western Europe and slower positive economic growth in North America, or some other scenario? It’s not yet clear whether the Russia-Ukraine conflict will be impactful enough to drive a global recession, but the consensus is that the further rising prices of energy and agriculture as […]
Numerous multinational CPG companies are suspending or limiting production in Ukraine in an effort to keep employees safe. The major CPG companies that have announced they are limiting or suspending production and/or distribution in Ukraine include Nestle, Coca-Cola, Philip Morris and Mondelez. The same is true for global agriculture companies that have operations in Ukraine, […]
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Food Price Index averaged 135.7 points in January, 1.1 percent higher than December and the highest level in 11 years. Driving the latest increase were month-over-month increases in the FAO Vegetable Oils Price Index and the Dairy Price Index of 4.2% and 2.4%, respectively. Palm […]
Nestle’s corporate strategy the past several years has prepared it for the highly inflationary environment we now find ourselves in. The main thing that stood out to me in Nestle’s full-year 2021 results, which were reported Thursday, was the stability in the company’s margins, which was highly impressive considering the tremendous margin pressure that many […]
“There’s a lot more focus on tracking the product itself” when it comes to consumer packaged goods, said Bart De Muynck, vice president of supply chain research at Gartner.
“Drayage carriers are getting booked out weeks in advance at the ports. … Gone are the days of trying to arrange drayage and transloading the day a container is released from a vessel,” says Global Gateway Logistics CEO.
This is the best article I saw in recent days relevant to CPG companies — Just Food described how consumer behavior will likely change in response to sharp inflation in food prices. The good news for CPG companies is that history shows that consumers will cut back on eating out at restaurants (first trading down […]
Following disappointing earnings on Thursday afternoon, Clorox (NYSE: CLX) shares fell 14.3% on Friday, making it the day’s worst-performing stock on the S&P 500. One of the lowlights was the company’s gross margin, which declined 1,240 basis points year-over-year in its fiscal second quarter to 33% from 45.5% one year earlier. That contraction was primarily […]
Before getting into CPG news, here are two near-term events for your calendar: On Friday, The Stockout show is focused on the railroad industry and features a true industry expert (not referring to myself). I will be interviewing Tony Hatch, an independent railroad consultant and longtime senior transportation analyst on Wall Street. He is fresh […]
Before getting into what’s happening in CPG supply chains, here’s something for your calendar: I host the next quarterly The Stockout webinar on Dec. 6 at 2 p.m. ET. Here’s the link to register. Last quarter, there was a great turnout, and the discussion was enhanced by the many participants who asked thoughtful and pertinent […]
Supply chain disruptions in 2021 have wreaked havoc on businesses, but smart CPG companies are leveraging data science to get ahead of the issues.
On this episode of The Stockout, Mike Baudendistel looks at how small disruptions lead to big pressure on the food supply chain.
On this episode of The Stockout, Mike Baudendistel digs into what consumer buying behaviors at grocery stores are telling CPG companies.
On this episode of The Stockout, Mike Baudendistel dissects the changes in consumer behavior and what they indicate about the return to normal life post-pandemic.
With most CPG companies already having reported first-quarter earnings, the CPG-related news this week centered around descriptions of consumer strength from their retail partners. In addition, the largest CPG companies, such as Unilever, are making bigger pushes into sustainable packaging. Finally, Oatly shares soared in their debut on Thursday. To sign up for The Stockout, […]
As the economy surges, inflation pressures are becoming more widespread. Everywhere you look, there are headline-grabbing reports of rising prices. Some areas where inflation is acute are in industrial commodities such as lumber and steel, while inflation in other areas directly impacts CPG companies such as agriculture, meat, packaging and freight costs. While those issues […]
Wall Street didn’t like Clorox’s earnings report late last week. There were analyst downgrades and shares are down from where they were a week ago and down 10% from their level three months ago. The company is in a tough spot with uncertainty over whether demand for its cleaning products will remain elevated as COVID […]
Tuesday morning there was big news out of the rail industry: Canadian National Railway (CN) made a stronger offer to acquire the Kansas City Southern (KCS) Railway than what Canadian Pacific (CP) and KCS agreed upon. Whether a deal closes, and between which railways, remains uncertain, but in this edition of The Stockout, I discuss […]
In today’s The Stockout, I discuss first-quarter earnings reports from Pepsi and L’Oreal. L’Oreal, in particular, has a lot of momentum of late with shares reaching all-time highs as investors seem to be intrigued by investing in cosmetics as a play on life returning to normal and the burgeoning Chinese middle class. Meanwhile, Pepsi’s results […]
Many shippers of fast-moving goods and consumer products saw increased sales during the pandemic, but many still suffer from a lack of supply chain efficiency. Locus has introduced an AI-powered tool, NodelQ, that helps optimize the supply chain.
FreightWaves’ Mike Baudendistel hosts a new podcast, The Stockout, and breaks down the consumer packaged goods market from manufacture to consumption.
When we look back at the COVID era, we will remember stockouts of toilet paper, cleared-out grocery store shelves and the impossibility of getting the latest video game console because of the semiconductor shortage. Today, consumer goods are still serving as a reminder that COVID is not fully behind us. Just as there are still […]
Earlier this week in The Stockout CPG-focused newsletter, I discussed the impact that China’s efforts to replenish its hog population was having on corn and soybean exports as well as the related transportation challenges. Today, I dig into another pork-related issue, California’s Proposition 12, which could have a major impact on pork supply chains and […]
Ernie Manansala Jr., chief marketing officer at BRÈINFÚEL, talks about the obstacles facing startup CPG brands and the need for flexible warehousing space with Grant Langston, CEO of Warehouse Exchange.
John Tyson, fourth-generation Tyson family member and chief sustainability officer at Tyson Foods, discusses sustainability strategies in protein systems and food supply chains.
Day Three of Global Supply Chain Week will cover topics related to food and CPG supply chains. Tyson Foods Chief Sustainability Officer John Tyson is set to start the day off with global sustainability in mind.
Bid season is here, which means contract rates are catching up to spot rates and in turn loosening capacity.
Sustainability efforts are becoming a major focus for CPG companies as consumers demand investments in a cleaner future.
Capital Logistics COO Michael Feig says it’s too early to tell if the summer will bring tight capacity to the reefer market.
Reefer truckload capacity begins to tighten further in the Midwest and Southeast
Reefer trailer orders were over 100% above replacement levels in November which shows capacity is trying to return to the reefer markets.
Droughts and geopolitical tensions are driving up cotton, corn, and soybean prices and in turn impacting supply chain costs.
Reefer spot volume volatility has exploded across the nation over the past week.
Lumber Prices are soaring which is threatening CPG companies with higher supply chain costs.
Reefer tenders have strengthened significantly out of the nation’s largest markets.
New Class 8 truck orders are increasing and this trend is likely to continue through 2021.
Disruptions in one corner of the world can impact operations at home. With the turbulence of 2020 hopefully behind us, Global Supply Chain Week will examine where the dust has settled and share lessons on reacting to the enormous disruptions of the previous year.
Coca-Cola slashes jobs in an effort to restructure.
Frito-Lay is responding to customers’ demands and have introduced an option for consumers to customize their variety packs.
As states prepare to administer COVID-19 vaccines, it is still unclear who will be deemed “essential”.
Reefer capacity is extremely tight across the country and especially out of port markets.
A coronavirus outbreak in Frito-Lay’s Vancouver manufacturing and distribution facility causes a temporary shutdown of the facility.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is set to disrupt many CPG supply chains.
DIY (Do It Yourself) projects are draining the supply of mason jars.
A shortage of smaller turkeys grips the nation as families gather in smaller groups for Thanksgiving celebrations due to the pandemic.
Consumer Brands Association’s latest survey shows fear among consumers regarding future stockouts.
Walmart’s On-Time and In-Full (OTIF) metrics are at the most strict levels in the company’s history just as the COVID exemption expires.
Direct-to-consumer is viewed as a strong growth driver in the future for CPG companies.
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