The real challenge for volume growth in FMCG still to come in 2025, industry expert warns

FMCG manufacturers are being urged to look deeply into the details and assumptions of their Key Account plans with a warning that the real challenge for volume growth may still be yet to come in 2025.

Anthony Carr, Managing Director of FMCG and retail commercial and capability consultancy Sellex, says conversations with commercial directors across a range of FMCG businesses in recent weeks has revealed a common, key concern:

“With promotional depth making a mockery of the headline price in many categories through this ‘volume-led recovery’ many brands and categories are bumping up against the maximum frequency of promotions based on retail price establishment rules,” he says.

Carr says many are asking what can possibly be next to pull the volume lever?

“The 2024 Summer of Sport has possibly come along just in time for many brands. But what about 2025? Many FMCG companies seem unsure just how “commercially confident” their teams are, particularly the fast evolving, aspects of customer development. This translates into uncertainty that they have a step-change formula in the works for 2025.”

Carr says there are eight areas in which manufacturers need to satisfy themselves that their trams are commercially confident:

1)    Retail Media – and being sure that you are making the right choices for the right objectives.
2)    The role of Artificial Intelligence – even if this just means looking backwards to surface key learnings in a more methodical way.
3)    Identifying the true efficacy of on-pack activations.
4)    The defensibility of Trade Terms and effectiveness of Customer Investment Plans.
5)    The size of the prize associated with a more cost-effective execution – prevention is always better than cure for the P&L.
6)    Whether they are buying all the right data, eliminating duplication and ensuring all insights are surfaced in all the right forums – how much are they guessing when they could be truly confident?
7)    Whether teams are optimising activations in a cross-functional way.
8)    How motivating are the selling stories for your major initiatives – how aligned to your customer’s strategies are they and how easy are they to say yes to?

“If manufacturers can tick all of the above, then they will likely have a great plan in place,” adds Carr. “If not, they run the risk of coming up short.”

Founded over 20 years ago as a specialist sales consultancy Sellex has evolved to help organisations instil commercial confidence – through capability development and through consulting. Whether it be commercial capability development, revenue growth management or commercial organisational effectiveness, its aim is to identify the commercial confidence opportunities for the teams in your business and identify the biggest profitable growth drivers in your organisation, preparing organisations for future success and driving top line through robust category and omni-channel growth strategies.