CPG News Roundup: September 2026

September was a month of leadership resets at the top of CPG. General Mills promoted its chief operating officer to chief executive after a multi-year succession process, the same day Mattel named a new CEO. Campbell’s cut its dividend by a third, closed three plants and reduced its salaried workforce by roughly 13% after another quarter its CEO called unacceptable. Barilla agreed to buy Goodles, the better-for-you mac and cheese brand that out-ran Kraft and Annie’s on velocity within three years of launch. Athletic Brewing and Boston Beer filled chief marketing officer seats within a week of each other, both after months-long searches. And Genesee’s parent company changed hands again, with a private equity buyer bringing back two executives who ran the business a decade ago. Each one is a decision about who leads, and each one puts a specific set of senior searches in motion.

Here are five stories that defined September. (Missed last month? Read our August 2026 CPG News Roundup.)

General Mills Names COO Dana McNabb CEO as Jeff Harmening Moves to Executive Chair

General Mills named Chief Operating Officer Dana McNabb its next chief executive on September 30, effective January 1, 2027. Jeff Harmening, CEO since June 2017, becomes executive chair. McNabb has spent 27 years at the company across general management, enterprise strategy, marketing and international, and will be the first woman to run General Mills. Independent lead director Maria Henry described the move as the result of a “robust, multi-year succession planning process.” The announcement came a week after the company beat first-quarter estimates on pantry staples, and against a backdrop of several years of flat sales in its North America grocery business. The same morning, Mattel named board member Roger Lynch as CEO, and Reuters counted more than two dozen CEO changes across global consumer goods and retail since mid-2025, including Hormel, Conagra, Tyson, Kroger, Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz, Walmart and Target.

Campbell’s Cuts Its Dividend, Closes Three Plants and Trims Salaried Staff 13%

The Campbell’s Company announced a $500 million savings program on September 3 alongside fourth-quarter results that showed net sales down 8% to $2.1 billion, snacks down 12% and U.S. soup down 8%. “Make no mistake, our results remain unacceptable,” said CEO Mick Beekhuizen, 18 months into the job. The program closes a chip plant in Jeffersonville, Indiana, a Cape Cod and Kettle Brand facility in Hyannis, Massachusetts, and a Pacific Foods plant in Tualatin, Oregon, affecting roughly 490 workers combined. CFO Todd Cunfer said a voluntary early-retirement program and involuntary reductions cut the salaried workforce by approximately 13%. The quarterly dividend drops 36% to 25 cents a share. On the investment side, Campbell’s is concentrating media behind Rao’s, Goldfish and Pepperidge Farm, shifting about 85% of working media to digital, social, influencer and AI-enabled channels, and standing up what Beekhuizen called a strengthened enterprise revenue growth management team to bring “greater rigor to pricing, promotions, price-pack architecture.” The company expects fiscal 2027 net sales to fall another 2% to 4%.

Barilla Agrees to Acquire Goodles

Barilla Group agreed to acquire Goodles, the Santa Cruz better-for-you mac and cheese brand, for an undisclosed sum. Goodles will operate as an independent brand under co-founder and CEO Jen Zeszut, who stays in the role, and keep its California headquarters. Founded in 2020, the brand reached profitability in 2024 and was delivering higher dollar velocities than Kraft and Annie’s less than three years after launch, on a formula of 14 grams of protein and 6 to 7 grams of fiber per serving. Guido Barilla, chairman of the world’s largest pasta maker, said the company had been following Goodles “for some time” and was “equally impressed by the strength of the organization, its unity, and its forward-looking mindset.” The deal gives Barilla a position in functional pasta and gives Goodles an international runway. It also fits a pattern: strategics are paying for brands that bring new shoppers into flat categories rather than brands that take share within them, and they are paying to keep the team that did it.

Athletic Brewing and Boston Beer Fill CMO Seats in the Same Week

Athletic Brewing appointed Dan Kleinman chief marketing officer, effective September 8, after what the company described as a months-long search. Kleinman spent nearly a decade at Deutsch Family Wine and Spirits, the last three years as CMO, where he oversaw the growth of Josh Cellars, and 16 years at Diageo before that. He succeeds Andrew Katz, who held the role for almost five years, with Senior Marketing Director Rosalie Kennedy serving in the interim. Athletic holds a 20.7% share of off-premise non-alcoholic beer sales per Circana, said in May it would raise national media spend 120%, and recently signed a multiyear partnership with MetLife Stadium, the Jets and the Giants. The next day, Boston Beer named Allison Stransky its next CMO, effective October 12, filling a seat vacant since Lesya Lysyj’s departure was announced in February. Stransky has been CMO of Samsung Electronics America since 2023, following five years at Google and nearly ten at L’Oréal. She reports to both founder and CEO Jim Koch and COO Phil Hodges, who had covered the role since March. Boston Beer’s first-half sales were down 3.8%, and its CFO departure was announced in August.

Genesee’s Parent Sold to Private Equity, With Former Leadership Returning

FIFCO USA, the owner of Genesee Brewing, Labatt USA, Seagram’s Escapes and Lipton Hard Iced Tea, was sold to Saothair Capital Partners, a Pennsylvania private equity firm, on September 3. The business will return to its former name, North American Breweries. Heineken acquired Costa Rica-based FIFCO last year, and CEO Dolf van den Brink told investors at the time that the U.S. operations were “not the part we’re interested in.” Saothair is bringing back familiar leadership: Peter Bodenham, vice president of marketing at North American Breweries until 2014, takes over as CEO, and Rich Lozyniak, who ran the company from 2009 to 2014, is a managing partner at the buyer. “Having led this business myself, I know firsthand what makes NAB special,” Lozyniak said. The Rochester brewery is expected to continue operating as normal.

What This Month’s CPG News Means for the Industry

September’s stories are about how companies choose leaders when the environment stops cooperating. General Mills ran a multi-year process and promoted from inside. Campbell’s, 18 months into an outside CEO’s tenure, is restructuring the organization around a smaller salaried base and a new revenue growth management function. Barilla bought a founder-led team and kept it intact. Athletic and Boston Beer each spent six months or more finding a CMO, and both landed on marketers from outside beer. Saothair bought a brewing business and reinstalled the people who ran it a decade ago.

Each of those resolves into a hiring decision. A planned succession like General Mills’ works because the successor was developed in a general management seat years before the announcement, which is an argument for building the bench now rather than opening a search when the chair becomes vacant. A restructuring like Campbell’s puts a wave of experienced snack and soup leaders into the market at once, and it creates immediate demand for revenue growth management talent who can run pricing and price-pack architecture with discipline, a function most mid-size brands have never staffed. An acquisition like Goodles’ is a reminder that acquirers underwrite the team as much as the brand, so the hires a founder makes at $20 million shape the valuation at exit. The two beer CMO searches show that six months is now a normal timeline for a senior marketing seat when a company insists on the right profile, and that the right profile increasingly comes from an adjacent category. And the North American Breweries sale is the clearest case this year of private equity betting on operator familiarity over a fresh set of eyes.

The hiring activity beneath the headlines was broad. Reuters’ tally of CEO changes across consumer goods and retail since mid-2025 now runs past two dozen, and the pattern inside it is consistent: boards are choosing operators with direct experience in the business or the category, whether promoted from within or recruited from a close neighbor. The companies that handled it well had a plan in place before the moment arrived.

Every month we write this roundup, and we go deeper in our newsletter. The throughline never changes: the time to recruit the right leader is before the strategic moment arrives, not after. If your organization is planning a succession, restructuring a commercial team, preparing a brand for acquisition, or opening a senior marketing search, the work starts now. Talk to our team about finding the leaders who will define your next chapter.