With
neither Procter & Gamble’s fabric care nor baby care business “delivering at the level that we want,” CFO Andre Schulten spent much of a Friday earnings call with analysts
touting innovations in both of those categories.
For fabric care, where sales were down slightly year-over-year in Q1 of P&G’s 2026 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, Schulten
focused on Tide detergent.
Shipments began recently for the brand’s “biggest upgrade to liquid detergent in 20 years,” he said, namely a
“boosted formula” that “combines its ultimate grease and stain-fighting technology with an advanced perfume innovation, resulting in laundry that's cleaner, whiter, brighter, and
fresher.”
Schulten also pointed to an “eventual national launch” of another detergent, Tide EVO, to start with a “Free and Gentle” iteration. Packaged in a fully
recyclable container, the eco-friendly product has been “highly incremental to category growth” in test markets, Schulten said, with “retailer demand… well above initial
expectations.”
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With P&G’s baby-care business up just slightly year-over-year, and competitors having ramped up their promotional activity, Schulten said that the
company plans “to drive consumer trial and delight” this quarter with upgraded versions of Pampers Easy Ups, Swaddlers, Cruisers, “and the first phase of restage to our mid-tier
Pampers Baby Dry line.”
In both fabric care and baby care, he explained, P&G aims to “create sustainable growth” by driving superiority through innovation,
to communicate that innovation “with the right claims meaningful to the consumer (and) retailer, and get retailer support online and in physical stores.” When P&G has done all
that, “we are seeing the results.”
“This plan takes longer,” he explained. “It's not as easy as throwing promotion funding out there.”
In
these categories, the company also sees less competition from the private-label sector, which Schulten said continues to decline. “Private label shares in the U.S., he stated, “are now
down 50 basis points. For the first time, share is dropping below 16%.”
Schulten also noted that a good portion of consumers are continuing “to move into larger pack
sizes” as they shop in club stores and online. “We need to make sure that we have the right value offering there,” he said, “and we are working on that with all of our retail
partners.”
Finally, Schulten said that P&G plans to “cut 7,000 non-manufacturing roles, or up to 15% of our current non-manufacturing workforce” during fiscal
years 2026 and 2027. This, he said, will enable the company “to create smaller teams that are better set up via fully digitally enabled data access and analysis to focus on the consumer and
brand-building.”