CPG Industry Statistics: Size, Growth, Challenges and Outlook

If you run a consumer brand or its marketing, next year's plan starts with a view of the market: how big it is, whether it is still growing, and where shoppers and advertising money are moving. The numbers behind that view should say who produced them, what they measure and which year they describe.

The figures below link to the organizations that produced them and give their periods and scope. The guide covers the size of the industry in the U.S. and worldwide, growth and volume in 2026, the challenges brands report, store brands, e-commerce and commerce media, and two categories that often appear in CPG trend lists. It ends with what the numbers suggest for where you invest.

DisclosureJake Jorgovan is a partner in Fieldtrip, a group of marketing agencies, which is mentioned in this article.

CPG statistics at a glance

How big is the CPG industry?

Consumer packaged goods are the everyday products people use up and buy again. One detailed U.S. measure is an economic contribution study by PwC (opens in a new tab) for the Consumer Brands Association, the industry's trade body, published in October 2024. It describes the industry as manufacturers of food, beverage, household and personal care products: beverage makers, food processors, and makers of over-the-counter drugs, household paper products, soaps and toilet preparations. Dog and cat food manufacturing is included. The study uses 2022 data, the latest year available when it was written.

The study gives two sizes, and they answer different questions:

• The industry itself. CPG manufacturers directly provided 2.7 million jobs, paid $195.2 billion in labor income and contributed $389.6 billion to U.S. GDP in 2022, 1.5% of the total.
• The economy it supports. Adding the industry's suppliers, the spending of the people they employ, and the transport, warehousing and retailing of its products, the study estimates that the industry supported 22.3 million jobs and $2.5 trillion of GDP: 10.5% of U.S. employment and 9.9% of GDP. The downstream part, the transport, warehousing and retailing of CPG products, accounts for about $1.1 trillion of that total.

The $2.5 trillion is the figure in the Consumer Brands Association's announcement (opens in a new tab) of the study. It measures the industry's economic footprint, estimated with an input-output model, and it is not a sales figure.

For a global sales figure, Euromonitor International's fast-moving consumer goods outlook (opens in a new tab), published in September 2025, projected that global FMCG sales would grow 4.6% in 2025 in current value terms to $6.6 trillion, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 5.3% in current value terms from 2025 to 2029. Euromonitor describes the growth as "largely price led". It is a forecast from a paid report, and its categories are close to, but not the same as, the PwC study's definition.

For the food side of demand, USDA's Economic Research Service puts total U.S. food spending at $2.51 trillion in 2025 (opens in a new tab), counting consumers, businesses and government. Food eaten away from home took 56.3% of that, or $1.41 trillion; food at home was $1.10 trillion. The share of income going to groceries has fallen over time: consumers spent 4.8% of disposable income on food at home in 2025 (opens in a new tab), down from 6.1% in 1997, while the share spent eating out rose from 4.3% to 4.9%.

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In constant 2025 dollars, U.S. food spending rose from $1.56 trillion in 1997 to $2.51 trillion in 2025. Spending away from home grew faster than spending at home. This covers all food expenditures, not just packaged consumer goods.ers.usda.gov (opens in a new tab)

Is the CPG industry growing, and what is the outlook?

U.S. retail food and beverage sales are growing slowly in dollars, with flat volume in Circana's measure, and Bain reports falling grocery unit sales. Neither gives a growth rate for every CPG category.

Circana's 2026 to 2027 food and beverage outlook (opens in a new tab), released in July 2026, found that U.S. retail food and beverage sales grew 2.2% in the first half of 2026, within its forecast of 2% to 4%. Volume was flat. Price and mix rose 2.3%: 3.7% in packaged foods and 0.4% in fresh foods. Circana expects growth of 2% to 3% in 2027, close to the pre-pandemic average of 2.5% to 3.5%, after nearly 7% a year between 2019 and 2024, which it attributes to the pandemic and high inflation.

Bain & Company's analysis with NielsenIQ (opens in a new tab), published in July 2026, is starker. U.S. grocery units fell by around 2% year on year in most of the four months to June 2026, and were down 1.8% in June, while grocery prices were still rising 2% to 3% a year and stood 33% above 2019. "The data is unambiguous: US grocery is in a genuine volume contraction," said Kurt Grichel, who heads Bain's Americas retail practice.

The two use different data, definitions and periods. Circana's figures cover food and beverage only, and Bain's release does not say which grocery categories it counts. Both point to weak demand for quantity alongside rising prices, and Circana also credits a richer product mix for part of the dollar growth.

What challenges are CPG brands facing?

Shoppers want proof of value

Deloitte's 2026 global consumer products outlook (opens in a new tab), published in January 2026, found that 47% of consumers globally, including 35% of high-income households, behave as value seekers. By its measure, only one-third of brands consistently feel "worth it" across price tiers.

Bain's Consumer Lab pulse survey, cited in the same July release, shows how that plays out in the U.S. The release does not give the sample size or survey dates. Eighty percent of Americans said they were trying to cut spending, and 28% were cutting back on groceries. Among those trimming grocery bills, 56% were trading down to lower-priced brands, 49% were buying fewer items and 44% were using more coupons and promotions. Bain also names the growing use of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, with 30% to 40% of users actively trying to cut back on groceries.

Store brands keep gaining share

Store brands reached record U.S. sales of $282.8 billion in 2025 (opens in a new tab), according to the Private Label Manufacturers Association, using Circana data for supermarkets, drug chains and mass merchandisers, in store and online. That is a 21.3% share of dollar sales and 23.5% of units, up from 19.1% and 21.6% in 2021. Store-brand dollar sales rose 3.3% in 2025 against 1.2% for national brands; store-brand units rose 0.6% while national-brand units fell 0.6%.

Circana's own private label research (opens in a new tab), released in March 2026, gives a larger figure: $330 billion, a 23% dollar share and a 24% unit share of the total U.S. market. The page does not state the period or outlets covered, so the two figures should not be compared directly. Quote one at a time, with its source.

Brands expect retailers to gain power

In the same Deloitte outlook, based on a survey of 300 senior executives at consumer products companies, 79% expect power to shift further toward retailers over the next two to three years. Deloitte links that to private label growth, retailer scale and retailers' consumer data. Only 31% of the executives said they were actively working on how to influence shoppers who use AI assistants.

Cosmetics regulation for beauty and personal care

For cosmetics brands, the FDA's page on the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA) (opens in a new tab) sets out the duties it created: facilities must register with the FDA and renew every two years, each marketed product must be listed with its ingredients and the listing updated annually, and serious adverse events must be reported within 15 business days. Certain small businesses are exempt from the good manufacturing practice, registration and listing requirements, though not for some product types, such as products that regularly contact the eye's mucous membrane during normal use or products that are injected. Check the FDA's page for current requirements and guidance before planning a launch. For brands choosing outside help in this category, the guide to beauty marketing agencies compares firms by the job you need.

Where shoppers buy, and where the ad money goes

E-commerce

Online sales made up 17.1% of all U.S. retail sales (opens in a new tab) in the second quarter of 2026, seasonally adjusted, up from 16.3% a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau's quarterly series. That share covers all retail, not CPG alone; no public primary figure for CPG's online share was found for this guide.

Commerce media

Commerce media is advertising that retailers sell, on their own sites and elsewhere, for their own products and the products they stock. The IAB and PwC internet advertising revenue report (opens in a new tab) for 2025 puts U.S. commerce media revenue at $63.4 billion, up 18.0%, down from 23.0% growth the year before. The report attributes the slowdown partly to "brands challenging retailers to prove the value of incremental advertising spend amidst measurement challenges". The figure covers revenue from all advertisers; the report does not break out CPG brands' share.

Social and the wider market

In the same report, social media advertising revenue rose 32.6% to $117.7 billion, and total U.S. internet advertising revenue rose 13.9% to $294.6 billion. The report also notes that privacy rules and platform changes are making it "more difficult to link exposure to real outcomes". If creators and social video are part of your plan, the guide to influencer marketing agencies compares providers.

Plant-based foods and pet care: two categories in the trend lists

Plant-based foods. The Good Food Institute, using SPINS retail data it commissioned (opens in a new tab), puts the 2025 U.S. retail plant-based food market at $7.9 billion for the 52 weeks to November 30, 2025, about double the $3.9 billion it measured in 2017. The dataset covers products positioned as plant-based, including store brands, and leaves out foods that are plant-based by nature, such as chickpeas and kale. GFI reports rapid sales growth from 2019 to 2021, moderation in 2022 and declines after 2023; in 2025, dollar sales fell 2%. Plant-based meat and seafood, about $1.0 billion, fell 10% in dollars; plant-based milk, the largest category at $2.7 billion, fell 2%. Sixty percent of U.S. households bought a plant-based food in 2025, and the category held 1.1% of retail food and beverage dollar sales.

Pet care. The American Pet Products Association reports that U.S. pet industry expenditures reached $158 billion in 2025 (opens in a new tab), up 3.7%, and projects $165 billion in 2026, growth of about 4.4%, of which roughly 2 points come from inflation. In 2025, 95 million U.S. households owned at least one pet; 53% of households owned a dog, up from 51% in 2024, and 39% owned a cat. The release does not break the total down by product, so it is not a figure for packaged pet food and supplies alone.

What the numbers suggest for your plan

Weak overall demand makes share gains an important planning assumption. Check whether your category and shoppers follow that pattern before setting a growth target. Bain describes grocery retail as having become "a share game", and the same pressure reaches the brands on those shelves.

Three planning points follow from the data:

• Give a premium a visible reason. With value seeking common across income groups and store brands outgrowing national brands, price increases alone are a weak plan for the year ahead.
• Agree the measure before you scale retail media. The IAB report attributes part of the slowdown in commerce media growth to brands asking retailers to prove the value of extra ad spend. Settle with the retailer how incrementality will be measured before the budget grows.
• Read every trend for its conditions. GFI reports rapid growth in U.S. plant-based retail sales from 2019 to 2021, followed by declines after 2023. Food and beverage sales grew nearly 7% a year from 2019 to 2024, driven, Circana says, by the pandemic and high inflation.

Where the next dollar goes is the decision behind all of these numbers. My rule for it is to test two or three channels at a time for about three months, then build a system around the one that works and scale it. As I put it in a 2021 episode on how to think about marketing, "most companies that are successful have one or two marketing channels that work really, really well for them." For a CPG brand, test a retail media network or a creator program for incremental sales before scaling its budget.

The market figures are context for your own numbers: sales growth split into price, mix and volume, units sold, market share, household penetration, repeat purchase and margin. Before any outside statistic goes into the plan, check five things: