Industries
Consumer Packaged Goods and Distribution
Enabling Product Innovation and Omnichannel Experience in CPG
Highlights
- 2026 will be a decisive inflection point for CPG, as shifts in consumer behaviour, wellness-first preferences, digital influence, and value consciousness converge with rapid advances in technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), redefining how brands create, operate, and compete.
- Breakthrough innovations in every major CPG segment are reshaping value pools, from precision nutrition and microbiome-friendly skin science to dark factories, bio-intelligent home care, sustainable material ecosystems, and AI-powered autonomous distribution.
- Leaders who embrace integrated, tech-enabled, consumer-aligned business models will unlock outsized growth, leveraging adaptive supply chains, data-driven decisioning, ecosystem collaborations, and sustainability-centric operations, to build a durable competitive moat.
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Big shifts
Consumer packaged goods (CPG) are entering a period of accelerated transformation and 2026 will shape up to be a year of decisive growth and breakthrough innovations for the sector.
CPG companies are entering 2026 with renewed momentum, driven by shifts in consumer behaviour, rapid advances in intelligent technologies, and a stronger push towards purposeful innovation. The modern consumer is value-driven, health focused, digitally influenced, and conscious but uncompromising. CPG companies are leveraging next-generation technology enablers such as industry-specific large language models (LLMs), automation, industrial internet of things (IoT), cybersecurity, humanoid robots, digital brains, and enterprise agentification as foundational capabilities to unlock smarter decisioning, autonomous operations, and hyper-efficient value chains. CPG companies must evolve quickly, embrace outcome-led offerings, and accelerate their transformation by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI)-powered intelligence, adaptive supply networks, strategic revenue management for optimised price, pack and promotions architecture, dark factories for agile, cost-efficient supply production, and sustainability-led business models (bioeconomy) that align with evolving consumer values. These next-gen capabilities will provide and define wide economic moat and unlock the next wave of growth.
Food and beverages
In 2026, the food and beverage (F&B) segment will blend elevated taste journeys with wellness-centric formulations, creating products that feel indulgent yet purpose-built for everyday balance.
Brands are likely to embrace functional health formats, precision nutrition dynamics, drive ecosystem play, and explore new-age channels for deeper consumer loyalty, margin expansion, and growth in a market that will experience intensifying pressure from private labels. At the same time, FSMA’s (Food Safety Modernization Act) stricter traceability mandates in the US will remain central in 2026, pushing brands to deepen digital monitoring and transparency.
- Health-first nutrition: A new consumer standard: Consumers are shifting from indulgent snacking to nutrients-rich alternatives as they prioritise weight control and long-term health. GLP-1 driven appetite shifts are reshaping demand for calorie-dense categories, softening volume momentum. This will have big implications for special occasions such as Thanksgiving. GLP-1 users are likely to significantly cut spending on savoury snacks—this, in fact, will be the most significant shift in food segment in last 100 years. To sustain category performance, brands have started to quickly re-engineer alternative portfolios containing nutrient-dense, appetite-modulated innovations along with increased protein and fibre content. This trend is expected to gain momentum all through 2026. For instance, Acai has become a ‘superfood’ sensation due to its health benefits and because it promotes bioeconomy. We envisage CPG companies to unlock bioeconomy-aligned product formats and accelerate innovation pipelines to meet rising health-first consumer demand.
- Ecosystem play to provide connected value: CPG leaders are forging ecosystem collaborations that cross-leverage each other’s strengths—shared consumer intelligence, joint product innovation, smarter distribution, hyper-personalised experiences, integrated supply visibility, and unified retail activation to accelerate growth. By combining data, platforms, and category expertise, they unlock connected growth: faster innovation cycles, efficient omni-channel execution, resilient operations, and elevated consumer experiences. For example, Mondelez and Lotus Bakeries joined forces to develop co-branded chocolate innovations and accelerate growth in cookie and chocolate categories and delight consumers.
- Shift from high-price tiers to curated craftsmanship driving premiumisation: Premiumisation will remain a growth lever in 2026, fuelled by easing cocoa and coffee costs that create more room for brands to elevate offerings. Brands are shifting from high-price tiers to experience-led formats like travel retail, leveraging airports and cruises as hubs for curated, impulse-driven purchases. Immersive packaging and exclusive in-transit experiences position premium retail as a global brand visibility and revenue catalyst. Mondelez launched a new travel-retail playbook that turns airports into immersive brand destinations with exclusive formats tailored for high-value travellers.
Apparel and footwear (A&F)
The next era in the evolution of apparel and footwear will be powered by intelligent performance and planet-centric purpose.
The apparel and footwear segment is entering a new phase where speed, flexibility, and sustainability lead the way. Brands are building localized supply networks to cut delays and reduce costs. At the same time, A&F companies are using sustainability scorecards to improve traceability and leveraging Gen AI-assisted designing to rapidly manufacture products. For example, Nike unveiled an AIR (athlete imagined revolution) Imagination AI Platform, to allow fans to design with unique ideas and experiment with new sneaker concepts and designs. With dark factories operating without any human intervention and adapting quickly to shifts in demand or production requirements leveraging AI, robotics and IoT, the companies are shifting towards operations that are agile, wasteless, and deliver higher-quality products.
- Localised supply networks are becoming the secret weapon and winning strategy for brands: Geopolitical unpredictability, shifting tariff structures, and fluid regulatory environments accelerate movement away from legacy single-country dependency. Event-based tracking systems strengthen operational precision by capturing real-time disruptions across ports, weather patterns, production milestones, and political events. Fast-fashion players benefit most as these signals trigger instant supplier rerouting, ultra-responsive replenishment, micro-batch fulfillment and creating adaptive ecosystems. Predictive engines continuously rebalance sourcing networks, enabling resilient, rapid, and disruption-proof flow cycles across all consumer segments.
- The circularity breakthrough: Turning waste into high-value materials at scale: By 2026, brands evolve from fragmented sustainability pilots to industrialized circular-material pipelines. Global sustainability regulations such as EU Eco-design for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) mandates, intensify demands for material traceability and decarbonization at scale. Sustainability scoring becomes a foundational operating metric influencing supplier selection, assortment construction, and long-term raw-material planning to help future-proof brand portfolios against tightening regulatory and environmental expectations.
Home and personal care (HPC)
Home and personal care fuses bio-intelligent science and circular systems to redefine daily wellbeing at home.
Biology-driven care, regenerative cleaning models, sustainable manufacturing, AI-enabled personalisation, and intelligent AI agents collectively shape a new era of wellness, efficiency, sustainable value creation, and elevated consumer experience.
- AI-Powered ingredient discovery and innovation: Advanced AI platforms are transforming HPC by discovering novel ingredients, simulating formulations, and generating precision-care products tuned to micro-needs in home hygiene, and skin, hair, and fabric care. Brands are shifting from mass-standardised offerings to hyper-personalised (for eg, Ravel shampoo, a hyper-personalised shampoo brand) products tailored to each consumer’s unique needs.
- Science-backed formulations and probiotic hygiene: HPC is no longer just care, it is becoming a connected, whole-body wellness ecosystem. Formulations are being made with science-backed ingredients that support the body at a deeper cell-level to improve overall health. The shift is reinforced by the rise of science-first brands like Minimalist, which champions clinically validated ingredients, transparent labelling, and microbiome-friendly skin health benefits. Meanwhile, everyday cleaning is moving from harsh antimicrobial approaches to probiotics that balance occupant wellbeing and safer hygiene.
- Sustainable and water smart care that protects resources, delivers high performance: HPC is moving towards ultra-concentrated, water-free formats that activate instantly and cut massive resource use in production transport and disposal. Smart solid capsules, dissolvable sheets, and closed loop refill systems redefine cleaning as a low-water, high-efficiency ecosystem, creating a future where performance sustainability and convenience advance together.
Toys and games segment
The next-gen play worlds are redefining discovery and intelligent imagination
Mystery collectibles, expanding kidult community, and intelligent science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) systems are reshaping the category as brands merge emotional excitement with future-ready learning to build more immersive, tech-progressive, and discovery-first toy ecosystems.
- Mystery collectible momentum: The blind-box model transforms into a dominant growth strategy for toy companies where surprise collectibles fuel engagement loops, repeat purchasing, and social-sharing phenomena. Supported by accelerating industry trend that highlights blind boxes as one of the fastest-advancing collectible formats, the model strengthens its position as a core engagement engine for modern toy consumers. This trend becomes a strategic engine for both children and adult audiences.
- STEM play powered by intelligent assistance: STEM toys evolve into inherently intelligent play systems that integrate robotics, coding, and adaptive AI-driven learning. Kits dynamically adjust challenge levels, provide AI-based guided feedback, and coach children through engineering logic in real time. With AI now driving market transformation across STEM education play products, this shift underpins strong parental investment and positions STEM play as a core future-skills play engine.
The distribution industry
Intelligent distribution networks are accelerating autonomous warehouses and sustainable mobility.
Distribution evolves into an intelligent, self-optimising, and green supply chain powered by AI, where advanced automation, industry IoT networks, and humanoid robots drive predictive operations, touchless fulfillment, and environmentally precise execution.
- Rise of self-driving distribution powered by AI: AI systems are taking over routine distribution tasks by sensing demand shifts based on weather, seasonality, and customer order history. They are predicting issues and making fast decisions without human intervention to autonomously adjust stock level for customers during holidays or sports events, thus improving fill rate and reducing last-minute shortages. This creates smoother operations, quicker responses, and higher productivity across the network. For instance, Sysco uses AI models to forecast weather, demand, cut overstock and spoilage, and optimise delivery routes to ensure timely, fresh food deliveries.
- Sustainable fleet networks driving green distribution advantage: Distribution networks are embracing low-carbon, highly visible fleet operations to meet regulatory, customer, and cost imperatives. Electro-fleet integration, telematics-enabled routing and carbon-footprint transparency unlock both ecological and commercial value. Green logistics becomes a strategic differentiator, and aligns wholesale distribution with ESG mandates and long-term profitability.