Hain Celestial slims down meat-free Linda McCartney’s range in the UK

Hain Celestial is slimming down its plant-based Linda McCartney’s range as part of its ongoing turnaround strategy.

The move is part of a drive by the US-headquartered CPG giant to consolidate its food & drink and personal care product portfolios.

Its latest initiatives include category-wide SKU reductions, consolidation of its operating footprint and streamlining the co-manufacturing network.

Hain said the steps taken were “unlocking annualised savings, generating operating cashflow to pay down debt and driving gross margin expansion”.

The group added part of the plan involved streamlining the Linda McCartney’s range, which included a focus on the frozen portfolio sold in Europe and the UK.

Linda McCartney’s is the second-biggest player in the meat-free category in the UK behind Quorn, but its sales went backwards in 2023 as demand in the sector fell, according to the annual Top Products Survey in The Grocer.

Since July 2023, Hain has removed 6% of its SKUs globally and is expected to increase that number over the next two years.

Hain, which owns Ella’s Kitchen and Earth’s Best, is also adjusting its portfolios in the baby/kids and beverages categories as part of “ongoing brand maintenance”.

The largest SKU reductions are occurring within Hain’s personal care business, which includes haircare, skincare and suncare under the Alba Botanica, Jason, Live Clean and Avalon Organics brands. More than 60% of underperforming products in the portfolio are being removed.

The business is also consolidating the manufacturing footprint in personal care down to one facility and eliminating five co-manufacturers from the network.

CEO Wendy Davidson said: “This critical work delivers on the commitments we outlined in the ‘Focus’ pillar of our ‘Hain Reimagined’ strategy to design a winning portfolio of brands across five categories, and to materially simplify our footprint and leverage scale and synergies across our five [including the UK] core geographies.

“These actions strengthen our focus on driving a core, hardworking portfolio of brands that produce stronger velocities and remove operational complexity from our supply chain to drive margin expansion.”

In snacks, Hain has already sold the Thinsters cookie brand to rival J&J Snack Foods in April, using the proceeds to pay down debt.

Hain unveiled its ‘Reimagined’ plan in September 2023 as it looks to simplify operations, pivot sales to growth and encourage long-term profitability.