Business of Food & Beverage

CAGNY: McCormick Sailing Right Along on Heightened Interest in Flavors

Feb. 19, 2025

‘Flavor is an enduring trend across food & beverage,’ said Chairman & CEO Brendan Foley, and ‘Heat is more than a trend, it’s a sustainable flavor profile.’

Dave Fusaro

There were some dire financial reports on the first day of the Consumer Analyst Group of New York meeting Tuesday. Along came McCormick & Co., reporting 6% sales growth for several years now and even higher operating income, all buoyed by the global interest in flavor and Americans’ interest in global flavors.

“Flavor is our growth engine. Flavor is an enduring trend across food & beverage,” said Brendan Foley, who’s been CEO since September 2023 and chairman since Jan. 1. And, if you were wondering, “Heat is more than a trend, it’s a sustainable flavor profile.

“Millennials spend more on hot sauces than they do on ketchup,” he added.

Traditionally a spices and seasonings company, McCormick bought itself into the condiments and sauces category with the 2017 purchase of Reckitt Benckiser’s Food Division (bringing Frank’s RedHot sauce, French’s Mustard and Cattlemen's barbecue sauce) and Cholula at the end of 2020.

The company’s sales are 53% in consumer products and 47% in “flavor solutions” -- industrial ingredients for other food processors. While the flavor solutions business eked out a mere 0.7% sales increase in FY2024, it had jumped 10% the year before. McCormick fortified that business with the recent purchases of Italy’s Enrico Giotti SpA at the end of 2016 and FONA/Flavors of North America at the end of 2020. Increasingly, foodservice operators are making McCormick brands, such as Frank’s Red Hot and Cholula, known to customers.

Flavors don’t contribute calories or fat but they play a key role in the overall flavor of a product, the CEO noted.

Foley noted five bullet points for continued growth:

Drive undisputed global leadership in herbs, spices and seasonings.
Advance leadership in global flavors.
Strengthen global heat leadership.
Expand branded condiments.
Accelerate new product innovation.

All those goals seemed within reach from Foley’s presentation.

Company officers reaffirmed long-term objectives of 4-6% annual sales growth, 7-9% operating income growth and 9-11% increases in earnings per share.

About the Author

Dave Fusaro | Editor in Chief

Dave Fusaro has served as editor in chief of Food Processing magazine since 2003. Dave has 30 years experience in food & beverage industry journalism and has won several national ASBPE writing awards for his Food Processing stories. Dave has been interviewed on CNN, quoted in national newspapers and he authored a 200-page market research report on the milk industry. Formerly an award-winning newspaper reporter who specialized in business writing, he holds a BA in journalism from Marquette University. Prior to joining Food Processing, Dave was Editor-In-Chief of Dairy Foods and was Managing Editor of Prepared Foods.