It doesn’t feel like it right now, but grilling season is right around the corner. We’ve had a number of consumer pressures in the outdoor cooking industry for a while now and Clorox sees that continuing into the summer.
…we still expect the consumer to remain under pressure and that means we expect categories to be flat to up 1% in the back half of the year. We certainly hope we could get to the top end of that range given the plans that we have but we’ll see how that plays out and what the consumer decides to do. We just feel like we have the right plans to both support category growth and share growth within those categories. whether that be innovation, the base distribution that we’re working on with retailers, our demand spending and plans, which is very strong. So we feel like we’re doing everything we can to continue to support getting back to category growth that is in line with what we’ve experienced in the past.
Linda Rendle, CEO of Clorox
The Kingsford parent company released earnings today, which provides some great insight into consumer behavior given their large portfolio of brands. They are on a fiscal calendar, so Decembers marks the end of Q2 for them.
They saw many of the same themes as previous quarters. They’re managing the tough consumer environment by offering larger value pack sizes and smaller pack sizes. This is to meet the consumer where they want to shop and how they want to shop.
Their customer has been buying more at clubs like Costco and Sam’s, and more at dollar stores. Clorox has options for that, specificially at Kingsford, they offer a value two pack at Sam’s.
we’re definitely continuing to see bifurcation of consumers. We continue to see all consumer groups under pressure, but I would note that we have seen from low-income consumers some additional pressure and making sure that we have the right value for those consumers is absolutely top of mind.
Linda Rendle, CEO of Clorox
And that is what we’re doing in the capability that we’ve built on RGM to ensure that we have the right price pack architecture. So getting them supported with smaller sizes for consumers who only have a little bit of cash to outlay, larger sizes, et cetera. And the purpose of that program is to deal with just that. And it’s more important than ever that we have that capability, and we’re beginning to ramp that up, and we’ve had some success in a number of businesses, but we need to, frankly, expand it faster across our portfolio.
Despite the consumer moving towards value, they aren’t seeing loss of share to private label products. Consumers still want brands.
The other thing I would note is in our categories, we have not seen significant trade down to private label. The last quarter, private label was up 1/10 of a share point, and we didn’t see any material change. Consumers still want brands. And we just need to figure out the right way to make sure we’re giving them the right price, the right pack at the right moment at the right retailer. And I feel like our back half plans better contemplate that.
Linda Rendle, CEO of Clorox
That’s a plus for Kingsford, which is by far the most dominant brand in the charcoal category. They plan to keep it that way too. They noted on the earnings call that if they need to lean into investing in price, they will.
We saw this previously with Kingsford, where they saw some loss of share due to pricing. They were quick to correct that and gained share back.
New Kingsford Product
Despite the consumer pressures, Clorox expects to have a good summer for Kingsford. Clorox has been investing in innovation, and that will include Kingsford. They also have a number of marketing investments lined up for the season.
We actually feel quite good about the next summer plans. There’s — a lot of it has to do with our merchandising plans, some have been optimized based on some of the learning from last summer, so we’ll have to lap that. And there’s also some incremental merchandising that we’re doing, taking advantage of big events like the World Cup or just even the 250th anniversary of the U.S. And so there’s a lot of opportunities to take advantage of this. We have a little bit of innovation as well. So right now, it looks — it’s gearing up to be a good and solid season for us.
Luc Bellet, CFO of Clorox – Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference 2025