Our latest industry report explores how the manufacturers protecting margin this year aren’t raising prices. They’re rethinking where the cost lives.
The tariff bill from 2025 is landing now. There’s typically a 12 to 18 month lag between when tariffs get set and when they hit the P&L, so decisions made last year are only now showing up in this quarter’s numbers.
The instinct is to pass the cost to shelf price. Resist it. Companies and retailers absorbed roughly 90% of last year’s tariff burden themselves, because price increases trigger volume losses that outrun what the higher price recovers. Conagra is already guiding toward mid-single-digit volume declines for FY2027, a preview of what happens when pricing carries the load instead of sourcing.
McCormick cut its tariff exposure from roughly $140 million to $50 million, a 64% reduction, without touching shelf price. Sourcing and forecasting did the work, and increasingly, AI is doing both faster than a procurement team can manually.
Price Is the Last Lever breaks down which input-cost moves are protecting margin in 2026, why AI-driven forecasting is outpacing spreadsheets, and a four-step playbook manufacturers can run before their next pricing conversation.
