By Wendy Davidson
President and Chief Executive Officer

When we introduced our Hain Reimagined Strategy in September 2023, we said our first step would be to take meaningful actions to advance our Focus and Fuel pillars to unlock efficiencies and invest in capabilities to return our business to growth.

Recently, we announced several key actions around category-wide SKU reductions, consolidation of our operating footprint and streamlining our global co-manufacturing network.

This critical work delivers on the commitments we outlined to design a winning portfolio of brands across five categories, to materially simplify our footprint and leverage scale and synergies across our five core geographies.

Global SKU Reduction to Shape a Winning Portfolio

We are designing a winning portfolio by actively assessing and streamlining our brand portfolios. Since July 2023, we have removed 6% of our SKUs globally and we expect to increase that number over the next two years. Today, those reductions are split almost equally between North America and International and include brands across the Snacks, Baby/Kids, Beverages, Meal Prep and Personal Care categories.

The largest SKU reductions are occurring within Hain’s Personal Care business, which includes hair care, skin care and sun care under the Alba Botanica®, Jason®, Live Clean® and Avalon Organics® brands. As part of a comprehensive assessment, we are removing 62% of underperforming SKUs in the portfolio. This work is being executed in phases to ensure a smooth transition for customers. 

In Meal Prep, we are streamlining our Plant-Based (Meat Free) portfolio, which includes a focus on the frozen portfolio that is sold in Europe and the UK. Within Snacks, we announced the sale of the Thinsters® cookie brand in April, enabling us to remove a non-core brand and category from our Snacks business and utilize cash proceeds to pay down debt. And in our Baby/Kids category, we’re adjusting our portfolios as part of ongoing brand maintenance.

Operating Footprint Simplification

We are also streamlining our operating footprint and leveraging synergies across the business to drive scale as we focus on five core geographies: the U.S., Canada, UK, Ireland and Western Europe.

Within Personal Care, we announced today we are consolidating our manufacturing footprint to one facility and eliminating five co-manufacturers from our network. This initiative will help expand overall gross margins through improved capacity utilization and lower manufacturing costs. The phased approached is expected to be complete in late summer or early fall 2024.

In Snacks, The Thinsters® divestiture enabled us to reduce our distribution center needs by two and removed a co-manufacturer from the network, generating annualized cost savings. Within Meal Prep, we consolidated our Yves® Plant-Based (Meat Free) manufacturing plants in Canada in late fiscal 2023. This move has enabled greater capacity utilization and delivered overall operational efficiencies and focus for the Yves brand. And In April, we ceased all production and operations within our non-strategic joint venture in India, which further streamlines our manufacturing footprint. We will continue to supply products in the IMEA region through our International operating segment.

This is the foundational year of our Hain Reimagined strategy. We continue to identify opportunities to further simplify and streamline our business through optimizing our operating model, leveraging synergies and scale and focus on shaping a winning portfolio. These efforts will unlock savings to further de-leverage the balance sheet and reinvest in brand building, channel expansion and innovation.