The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) honored McCormick & Company and Pinnacle Foods with the 2016 Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Awards.

More change in the CPG industry will occur in the next five years than in the last 50 as companies will need to focus on mastering consumer experiences and not just consumer goods.

Companies are facing a “winner-take-all” situation, with half of the sales growth coming from digital channels.

Continuous collaboration between consumer goods manufacturers and technology suppliers is necessary to speed up the implementation of new processing and packaging solutions.

Other trends include rising freight costs, declining service levels and growing inventories.

Global chocolate manufacturer the Hershey Company and Palantir Technologies, Inc.—a software company closer associated to the CIA and US Department of Homeland Security—have teamed up to build a consortium of consumer packaged goods manufacturers.

Getting products to retailers is increasingly an uphill battle for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies as 80 percent of CPG supply chain leaders say transportation is now their greatest worry, according to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG)and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA).

The top three impacts to companies include greater price volatility around supply/raw materials; long-term shortage of supply resources; and decreased ability to manage costs. 

By embracing a digital approach early, companies can establish leading positions that later will prove difficult for others to overtake.

Top companies are identifying and engaging with customers and focusing on innovation that directly reaches them.