RB: The Volume Line Is Back
And It’s Leaving Some FMCG Giants Behind
Pricing power is dying in FMCG, and Reckitt just gave us the clearest proof yet.
For three years, the industry’s growth formula was simple. Raise prices, protect margin, let inflation do the rest. That formula is finished. Reckitt’s second quarter of 2026 shows what happens when a company has to find growth somewhere else, and the search reveals more about the state of FMCG than any single earnings call usually does.
Core Reckitt delivered like-for-like net revenue growth of 4.2% in Q2 2026, up from 1.3% in Q1. That acceleration matters less than what drove it. Unit volume moved from -1.0% in Q1 to +2.0% in Q2, a 300 basis point swing in a single quarter. Price and mix contributed 2.2%, with premium mix alone worth 90 basis points. For the first time in a long time, Reckitt grew because more people bought more product, not because each unit cost more.
The Volume Line Is Back, But Only for Some
This is not a Reckitt story. It is an industry story, and Reckitt is simply the clearest data point in it.
Unilever posted underlying sales growth of 4.8% in H1 2026, with volume contributing 4.2% of that and price only 0.6%. In Q2 alone, Unilever’s volume growth hit 5.5%, its strongest quarterly pace in over fifteen years. Chief Executive Fernando Fernandez called it the best volume quarter at Unilever in over a decade, with every Business Group delivering volume-led growth. Nestlé’s Real Internal Growth accelerated from 1.2% in Q1 to 1.8% in Q2, part of organic sales growth of 3.6% for the half. Even Haleon, a pure consumer health play, posted 3% organic growth for 2025 with a 6.2% volume and mix contribution in Q4.
