Conagra on the Rebound, Looks to Push Innovation Harder
Conagra president and CEO Sean Connolly opened his company’s Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) presentation this year with a not-so-offhanded remark about how this year’s presentation would be much different than last year’s, when the company reported some rough results and saw its stock price plummet shortly afterward — and then the company delivered on that promise.
Conagra reaffirmed its 2026 guidance, and even felt confident enough at the end of the presentation to hint at potential 2027 success driven by its multi-year Project Catalyst efforts, looking to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the organization to drive performance enhancements in all processes.
Connolly said the company was successfully driving a return to growth, and some of the evidence he provided showed a very recent turnaround in volume and dollar sales. Although Conagra showed losses in volume sales against a year ago for the last 52 weeks (-2.1%) and last 13 weeks (-1.7%), the company posted a 2.4% volume sales gain for the latest 4 weeks vs. a year ago. Dollar sales vs. a year ago showed a more dramatic climb, from a loss of 1.6% for the latest 52 weeks to a gain of 4.5% for the latest 4 weeks. He added that frozen retail sales returned to growth in Q3, and snacks were up 5.3% from a year ago.
As mentioned last year, Connolly repeated that the company’s frozen, snacks and staples-focused portfolio was well-positioned for growth, leading into a detailed breakdown of Conagra Brands’ efforts to win what it called the “Superior Relative Provocativeness (SRP) battle” by Bob Nolan, senior vice president of Growth Science for Conagra Brands.
Nolan (and Connolly) discussed the ways the company was using data and AI to generate insights on consumers today, who fall into more diverse categories than ever before. It has allowed the company to generate insights such as its “Future of Frozen Food” report (Food Processing’s Food for Thought podcast had Alie Burnet from Conagra Brands on earlier this month to discuss those insights, by the way) — and make decisions based on real human behavior rather than focus groups and surveys.
The middle class continues to shrink, Nolan said, being replaced in the market by both lower income shoppers (think young adults just getting started and retired adults) and upper income shoppers. Generationally speaking, Gen Z shoppers, Millennials with families, and aging adults all are driving changes in product development and sales.
Gen Z is very different than previous generations when they entered the market. They love hot and spicy snacks, handheld frozen, on-the-go solutions, and better-for-you options. Millennial families, too, want convenience, but they are adventurous when it comes to exposing their children to cuisines and flavors. Nolan mentioned the ubiquitous chicken nugget as a staple for his children growing up, and said that is no longer the case. Kids are eating sushi and other global dishes with intense flavors that their parents are introducing to them. Finally, aging adults aren’t hitting retirement in the same way as their predecessors — they are a group that wants to stay active later into their lives and manage their health accordingly.
Conagra has been able to innovate around these consumer trends, and it reported that it pulled in more than $300 million in retail sales from innovations launched in fiscal 2025 alone. Nolan ripped through a long list of innovative products that have seen success already, or have the company excited about the ways they address consumer demands, including Banquet Mega Breakfast Bowls, for example, which were launched earlier this month.
The company optimizes its mix by focusing on Taste, Economy, Convenience and Health (TECH), ensuring new products meet all those consumer demands to drive performance in the marketplace.
Then, Conagra looks at the “provocativeness” in a fractured, distracting media landscape. It has gotten more challenging to get the attention of the multi-screen, multitasking consumer, whether in-store, online or in other media. Conagra works to provide large and small format options for consumers and tries to center its promotions on the value proposition.
Regardless, Nolan said, companies need to use commercial innovation to drive provocativeness and break through all the noise to get the attention of the consumer, which continues to be more and more challenging as media continues to diversify and change.
About the Author
Andy Hanacek
Senior Editor
Andy Hanacek has covered meat, poultry, bakery and snack foods as a B2B editor for nearly 20 years, and has toured hundreds of processing plants and food companies, sharing stories of innovation and technological advancement throughout the food supply chain. In 2018, he won a Folio:Eddie Award for his unique "From the Editor's Desk" video blogs, and he has brought home additional awards from Folio and ASBPE over the years. In addition, Hanacek led the Meat Industry Hall of Fame for several years and was vice president of communications for We R Food Safety, a food safety software and consulting company.