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Tessa Weigand is the chief executive of CURION and provides insight into the CPG brand. The opinion is its own.
The CPG company is facing a product crisis. The recent political news of tariffs, supply chains and “making the United States healthy” has been forced to talk within the brand for ingredients, but there is still a lack of conversation on the overall importance of product quality.
The highest performance products are 15 times more likely to be successful in the long -term market than the lowered products. However, after repeated downward CPG cost reduction for 10 years, the average traditional brand product can not only be the highest performance but also be the worst quality at the highest price.
This is not important for the other three “P” in marketing without a product, and there is nothing in prices, places or promotions.
More than 70% of consumers cite product quality as product quality, and the main factor that loyal to brands and product quality contributes to customer satisfaction than price or brand image. It is also a repeated purchase that leads most of the company’s profit.
The importance of product quality is expanded in the era of e -commerce. In fact, all consumers refer to product reviews before purchasing, and the average grade of the average grade can increase the sales volume of the product to 26%. The brand can no longer hide the quality of the product from the consumer, and the consumer is clearly speaking with the wallet.
Consumers are shouting to be interested in product quality and experience on the roof. According to Bain’s Consumer Products Report 2025, consumers are dividing spending between value -oriented personal label brands and high -quality premium products that consumers justify prices. Brand loyalty continues to decrease among groceries, and consumers weaken the value of CPGs between traditional grocery store banners and places such as ALDI, Trader Joe ‘S and COSTCO.
As cherry is above, “crispy mother” brought natural ingredients and overall food quality to the forefront of American culture and politics. Last year, the grassroots movement was a remarkable protest against the CPG Giants, and most recently Red Dye No. The prohibition of 3 has increased food regulations in the FDA.
You can understand whether the quality of the product has become an elephant that is constantly expanding in the room. Innovation and manufacturing are expensive, and if you reduce these investment, you can immediately increase your margin in the short term. But this margin gain is also short.
For example, the two shelf stable macaroni and cheese brands have seen that their market share is almost 5% in three years. And the story is not unique. The Mass and Value brand has a almost 2%market share since 2020. Considering in the context of tens of millions of dollars of sales erosion every year, the cost of increasing product innovation or better ingredients is not expensive.
Undoubtedly, 2025 is one year of AI’s one year, digitization and data -oriented insights and cost savings, but there is an additional perspective. The brand that recognizes growth problems is a product problem, and you will have the opportunity to modify the long -term investment and reconstruct the foothold.
If you continue to focus on your business at the cost of consumers, you will find that prices, promotion, deployment, or people can’t overcome bad products.
