In today’s fast-moving consumer packaged goods market, consumer insights and real-time data are no longer “nice to haves.” Instead, the use of CPG insights can mean the difference between cookie-cutter business decisions and effectively tailored organization-wide actions.
What are CPG insights?
CPG insights are essentially data-backed interpretations of the who, what, where, when, why and how of consumer shopping behaviors. In the CPG space specifically, these insights often convey early consumer demand signals and reveal retail performance, ecommerce and supply-side data patterns. When leveraged appropriately, CPG insights can help teams align their CPG marketing, CPG sales and CPG brand management efforts with their larger goals while ensuring they account for industry trends and consumer preferences.
What do CPG consumer insights reveal?
Consumer insights reveal fluctuations in customers’ preferences, priorities and purchasing habits. These insights have proven particularly vital in recent years, as economic uncertainty, social media marketing and rapidly shifting consumer values have forced brands to rethink just about everything.
This is part of what makes AI-fueled CPG consumer insights so valuable: they can help brands proactively predict likely changes in trends and market conditions and empower them to respond with more confidence to sudden shifts in the market. For growth-oriented teams focused on cpg growth and long-term cpg revenue, the short and long-term benefits of leveraging consumer insights can help shore up cash flow, incentivize innovation and provide fail-safes against unforeseen market fluctuations.
Which retail insights really matter for CPG products?
There are numerous data points and insights that can prove invaluable for CPG brands looking to maximize growth and minimize risk. A few insights CPG brands commonly look at include:
- Distribution gaps
- Shelf/SKU performance
- Promotional performance
- Supply chain patterns
- E-commerce stats
- Flavor and format trends
- Consumer values/preference reports
Brands can decide for themselves which insights are most likely to suit their needs and can tailor some of their data collection efforts accordingly. There’s strength in numbers, though, so the more data points CPG teams can analyze, the more likely they are to make informed and effective decisions.
What were the key insights for CPG brands in 2025?
In 2025, the most actionable insights for CPG brands centered on agility and efficiency. Brands that prioritized faster innovation cycles, embraced demand forecasting and invested in more disciplined portfolio management were able to adapt more effectively to the changing CPG landscape. CPG insights played a role in more than just CPG finance and marketing decisions, however. Instead, CPG brands put their faith in cold, hard data to drive their CPG manufacturing, pricing and CPG M&A decisions.
2025 was all about doing more with less, and 2026 is poised to present similar challenges. In the months ahead, CPG insights will continue to prove vital not just for growth, but for CPG cost management and resource allocation in the face of ongoing economic uncertainty.
How can AI-driven insights improve promotional effectiveness for CPG brands?
Today’s customers are perhaps more invested in sales and promotions than ever before, and AI and CPG insights are helping brands tailor their offerings accordingly. AI-driven insights can help brands identify common consumer pain points and formulate promotions to specifically address these gaps.
Additionally, AI models can help brands identify which promotions are most likely to resonate with their audiences before they roll out their offers – preventing brands from wasting key marketing resources on ineffectual promotional deals. This proactive approach to targeting and evaluating promotions can boost CPG marketing efficiency and improve ROIs.
How can online grocery insights guide CPG decisions?
As digital grocery shopping and delivery platforms become more common, online grocery insights can provide CPG brands with a close-up look at consumer behaviors and preferences. Based on these insights, brands can tailor their SKUs to better suit the needs of online shoppers and ensure their products stand out from the crowd on digital delivery platforms.
Data regarding search behaviors, digital basket composition and even substitution patterns can all reveal what shoppers are considering and how they go about making their final product selections. For brands investing or considering investing in CPG ecommerce, these insights can form the basis of a more tailored, intentional ecommerce approach and support more effective pricing and marketing strategies across the board.
How can smaller CPG brands use retail insights to stand out?
One of the best ways small brands can give themselves a competitive edge is by using retail insights to help them identify emerging trends in the CPG space. If a smaller CPG brand can get ahead of the curve, they may be able to carve out a stronger brand presence and increase public confidence in their company.
Even small brands can make big waves if they throw their weight behind the right products and services. By identifying underserved regions, catering to niche demand pockets and capitalizing on whitespace opportunities, smaller CPG brands can maximize the value of their data insights
and set themselves up for long term success.
Expected CPG insights in 2026
Looking ahead to 2026, CPG insights are expected to become even more predictive, integrated and optimized. As brands begin to rely more heavily on AI and CPG insights, we can expect online shopping and even in-person shopping experiences to allow for advanced data collection and interpretation.
In addition to optimizing shopping and brand experiences for consumers, we expect that CPG insights will be increasingly used on the backend to help CPG brands head off supply chain disruptions and forecast product performance more reliably. 2026 may also bring about renewed opportunities for brands to collect and leverage real-time feedback from their consumers and fill in any remaining gaps in their manufacturing, marketing and distribution processes.
How can Tastewise help CPG brands uncover the right insights?
Tastewise is an AI-powered consumer intelligence platform that helps CPG brands scale and optimize their operations based on real-time trend and performance data. With Tastewise, CPG brands can closely monitor the latest consumer demand signals and respond accordingly. Tastewise gives brands an up-to-date glimpse into emerging, stabilizing and waning flavor and format CPG trends and translates them into actionable insights to boost performance across multiple stages of production.
Whether brands are optimizing portfolios, evaluating new opportunities or updating their manufacturing and distribution approaches, Tastewise provides the clarity needed to compete in a crowded market while prioritizing the needs of new and established consumers alike.
Final thoughts
In a year characterized by rapid change and ever-increasing complexity, CPG insights played a major role in helping brands refocus, reinvent and rearrange their operations. As technology continues to evolve, data-driven CPG insights are no longer optional for brands looking to stay competitive in a crowded field.
If you’re hoping to take your CPG brand to the next level in 2026, now is the time to hit the ground running by investing in actionable, tailored insights. With advanced tools like Tastewise and an ongoing investment in innovation, CPG companies of all shapes and sizes can get and stay laser-focused on sustainable growth while meeting the unique and evolving needs of modern consumers in the months ahead.
FAQs about CPG Insights
In the past, CPG brands had to rely exclusively on historical data to make decisions about products, promotions, distribution and more. Thanks to recent technological advancements, however, brands can utilize real-time CPG insights to help them make proactive and responsive business decisions.
CPG data insights provide specific, actionable information that can empower teams to make more aligned decisions across the board. Rather than relying on a trickle-down effect between departments, data insights make it possible for brands to devise a cohesive strategy from the top-down.
Many CPG brands target retail insights that highlight demand signals, SKU performance, promotional success, distribution gaps and other channel-specific consumer behaviors impacting growth and profitability.
