Each year, CEOs from many of the largest consumer products companies gather at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference to outline their strategic priorities for the coming year. While much of the conversation centers on financial performance, CAGNY is also valuable as a window into capital allocation decisions, operating model evolution, and the capabilities leaders believe will define competitive advantage over the next decade. 

In contrast to the volatility-driven messaging of prior years, this year’s presentations reflected something different: intentional recalibration. Leaders spoke about concentrating resources behind core brands, refining portfolios to compete in an increasingly polarized consumer economy, embedding AI into operating workflows rather than treating it as an experiment, elevating revenue growth management from a margin protection tool to a strategic growth lever, and modernizing distribution networks to capture share with greater precision. 

In total, the signal is clear: in a slower-growth environment, focus matters more than breadth. The winners will be those who align capital, capabilities, and operations around a smaller set of improved competitive advantages. 

6 CPG Strategic Priorities from CAGNY 2026

Below are six key themes from the conference that are shaping strategic priorities for CPG as we move deeper into 2026:

1. A Return to the Core: Depth Over Breadth

The center of gravity has moved back to the core portfolio.  

Across the industry, leadership teams are narrowing attention to the brands and platforms where they have durable competitive advantage. Non-core assets are being exited, SKU counts are coming down, and investment is concentrating behind brands that hold meaningful consumer loyalty and retailer leverage. The underlying assumption: complexity has crept too far ahead of consumer orientation. 

In a slower-growth environment, these power brands create greater strategic flexibility because they’re more efficient for investment in innovation and marketing. They travel better across channels and geographies, and importantly, renewed focus creates clearer alignment across these large complex organizations. 

However, this shift requires more than portfolio pruning. It requires a reassessment of the industry’s fixation on continuous optimization. Organizations cannot indefinitely do more with less while simultaneously managing broader portfolios and greater channel complexity.  

To realize value from this shift, organizations will need to realign structure, process, technology, and investment around a smaller set of true priorities and resist the pull back toward complexity. 

2. Preparing for a K-Shaped Consumer Economy 

The search for growth now focuses on both ends of the consumer spectrum with equal intentionality. 

Leaders described pressure in the middle of the market, while both value-oriented and premium segments continue to expand significantly. Households are trading down in some categories and trading up in others, often within the same basket. Sustained inflation, SNAP reductions, and channel shifting are real. So too is demand for indulgence, functionality, and premium experiences. 

Companies’ responses have gone far beyond discounting into deliberate portfolio re-design and focused investment. For example, smaller pack formats are protecting accessibility, club and value-channel presence is expanding, and at the same time, premium sub-lines, bold flavor extensions, and function-forward innovation are driving margin accretion at the top of the portfolio. 

Executing this balance requires more precision than expansion cycles of the past. Price pack architecture, channel-specific assortment design, elasticity modeling, and supply chain flexibility now sit at the center of strategy rather than at the edges. 

Sustaining performance in this environment will require organizations to design portfolios, pricing, and operating models that can flex across both ends of the income spectrum without eroding margin.

3. Innovation Anchored in Demographic & Consumer Shifts 

Innovation pipelines are becoming more population-led and less trend-driven. 

Across companies, product development themes reflect demographic and consumer market changes. The most cited examples were Hispanic-inspired flavors aligned with population growth, protein- and fiber-forward offerings responding to aging consumers, and clean-label and ingredient-conscious platforms aimed at younger households.  

Rather than chasing the latest trends, organizations are grounding innovation in more durable population trends and health behaviors. That shift requires stronger translation between insight teams and R&D, more disciplined prioritization of innovation resources, and deeper cultural sales and marketing competency. 

The companies that tie innovation to demographic reality are building resilience into the portfolio. Making this durable will require stronger investment and integration across analytics platforms, product lifecycle management, and cross-functional planning processes, ensuring that insight, R&D, and commercial teams are aligned around the same growth priorities. 

4. AI Embedded Into the Operating Model

The conversation around AI has matured from years prior. 

AI is no longer positioned as experimentation across every facet of the business. It has been mentioned in contexts where it is being embedded directly into the operating model. The primary applications repeated across organizations include accelerating innovation cycles in R&D (e.g. formula finding), scaling marketing content with greater targeting precision (e.g. ad generation), and strengthening forecasting accuracy and integrated business planning. 

Leaders are focused on speed, precision, and productivity. AI is increasingly integrated into existing core systems rather than deployed as stand-alone tech stacks. The priority is no longer isolated use cases but rather interoperability across ERP and other planning systems, supply chain infrastructure, and commercial processes. 

To sustain competitive advantage, organizations will need to invest not just in AI and other advanced analytical tools, but in data governance, systems integration, change management, and capability development that allow these technologies to become part of the operating culture rather than a new advanced capability. 

5. Revenue Growth Management as a Core Discipline

Revenue Growth Management has moved to the center of commercial strategy. 

In a flat to declining volume environment, precision matters. Leaders repeatedly described refined price pack architecture, strategic price calibration, promotion optimization, and more disciplined trade allocation. The objective is to stretch the promotional dollar further, in line with the “return to the core” strategy described above. 

RGM is increasingly the mechanism that allows portfolios to stretch both value and premium tiers simultaneously. It enables accessibility at the entry tier while sustaining pricing power where brand equity supports it. 

Executing this well requires stronger coordination between sales, finance, and analytics teams. It requires modernization of Trade Promotion systems and tighter integration across the ecosystem of core systems. It also requires clearer visibility into elasticity by channel and cohort utilizing advanced analytics, tighter trade governance, and improved forecasting accuracy. 

Sustaining performance will require the embedding of revenue management capabilities and discipline into everyday decision-making rather than treating it as a standalone team or periodic exercise.

6. Distribution and Channel Engineering as Competitive Edge

Distribution strategy has re-emerged as a source of competitive advantage.  

As opposed to conversations about assurance of supply, growth discussions center on how products reach the right channels with the right economics, whether through hybrid DSD and warehouse models, convenience expansion, away-from-home growth, or geographic whitespace. 

Companies are aligning pack formats, network design, service models, inventory placement, and pricing structures to the realities of each channel. As channel economics diverge in a “K-shaped economy”, route-to-market design and demand planning must evolve alongside them. 

Physical distribution scale still matters, but competitive advantage is increasingly defined by how well companies align their network design, supply chain flexibility, and channel-specific commercial strategies to serve each route to market effectively and profitably. 

Final Thoughts

The messaging from this year’s CAGNY conference suggest that the industry is entering a more disciplined era of growth. Rather than radical transformation or total reinvention, the largest CPG players are strengthening the foundations of their businesses. 

The common thread is focus. In a world of slower baseline consumption growth, consumer economic polarization, and sustained cost volatility, profitable growth will favor companies that can extract more from their core power brands. The next phase of competition will be defined less by breadth and more by precision in portfolio focus, in pricing, in channel strategy, in innovation targeting, and in capital deployment. 

For CPG leaders, the implications are significant: growth will be earned through sharper execution and integrated capabilities rather than expansion for expansion’s sake. Those who align portfolio, commercial discipline, digital enablement, and distribution will be best positioned to deliver consistent, compounding growth in the years ahead.