Heading into the 2025 calendar year, the food & beverage industry’s rear-view mirror may show a highly contentious presidential election disappearing into the distance. Through the windshield, the outlook is not as clear as some might have hoped. In fact, 2025 could be quite the wild ride — after a year that produced some positive outcomes.“For the first time in three years, the industry achieved volume growth [in 2024]: We had 1% volume growth for total CPG, and that was consistent between food & beverage, and non-food,” says Sally Lyons Wyatt, global executive vice president and chief advisor at Circana.That may not seem like a lot of growth, but Billy Roberts, senior analyst of Food & Beverage CPG for CoBank, explains, “If the past couple of years in the CPG space has taught us anything, it’s that volume is everything. We’ve seen dollar sales in a lot of different segments and categories continue to rise, but strictly on the back of price increases.”In 2024, retail volume (up 1.1%) benefitted from a 2% drop in foodservice traffic, Circana data shows, even though both channels showed 2.5% dollar sales growth. But will volume continue to rise next year? Well, says Lyons Wyatt, “The complexities of 2025 are daunting — there are just so many things that can happen.”With all that uncertainty, Circana is forecasting a similar year for volume — somewhere between flat (0%) and 1% growth. The dynamics, however, are expected to change, with more people expected to return to the office this year, bumping foodservice traffic up and retail food & beverage purchases for in-home consumption down. Beverages, meat, produce and dairy should continue to outpace the average, Lyons Wyatt says, while general foods, frozen foods and deli keep pace, and bakery and seafood lag the average.Buckling upIndeed, “expect the unexpected,” is the turn of phrase we have been hearing from many sources — with full disclosure that unexpected doesn’t always mean negative.Donald Trump won the November 2024 presidential election, and by the time you’re reading this, he may have begun to serve a second, non-consecutive term as U.S. president. As with any new administration, change is expected, and his picks for cabinet and to lead various government agencies should help shine some light on the future.That said, President-elect Trump is also a returning president — who had not selected any nominees from his first term (as of late December, when we went to press with this story), so anyone hoping his first-term policies and actions will lend strong guidance might want to pump the brakes.Even so, Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy for the Consumer Brands Assn., explains that food & beverage processors don’t necessarily have to plan radically differently this time around.“Nutrition, consumer transparency about ingredient safety, trade and tariffs, cost to consumers and impact on supply chains: These are all longsta
Gio. Gen 16th, 2025
