Goldman Sachs published NielsenIQ point-of-sale data for the week ending August 8 indicating that total store sales rose 1% in the most recent four-week period. The firm notes that the pace of expansion moderated when examining the most recent two weeks, which were nearly flat compared with the prior two-week interval.
The data highlight divergent performance across consumer staples categories. Pet Care and Health & Beauty Care were the strongest categories over the four-week window. Household Care and Grocery delivered modest positive growth, while Baby Care was flat. Offsetting those gains were declines in General Merchandise, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Dairy.
Food and Health & Personal Care moved in opposite directions during the latest four-week set. Food sales registered a modest decline, whereas Health & Personal Care posted an acceleration in sales growth relative to the prior month. Nevertheless, two-year stacked sales growth slowed for both of these categories.
Within Health & Personal Care, Church & Dwight (NYSE:CHD) led year-over-year gains. Goldman Sachs attributes CHD's outperformance to promotional activity that translated into mid-to-high single-digit volume growth in the latest four-week period. Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) and Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB) also registered strength: P&G's expansion reflected a mix of volume and price contributions, while Kimberly-Clark's uptick was driven primarily by volume.
Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL) recorded low single-digit sales growth, though Goldman Sachs notes that trends decelerated versus the prior month amid lower price growth. Clorox (NYSE:CLX) showed sequential improvement in sales as higher price investments combined with robust volume growth. Another name in the group, NYSE:KVUE, lagged peers with under 1% sales growth, but this nonetheless represented an improvement from declines observed in the previous month.
Turning to beverages, dollar sales growth softened on a two-week versus four-week basis across most non-alcoholic subcategories. Declines in short-term momentum were observed for coconut water, energy drinks, sparkling water, sports drinks, ready-to-drink coffee and ready-to-drink tea. By contrast, dollar sales growth for carbonated soft drinks and bottled water held steady across the two- and four-week comparisons.
At a company level within non-alcoholic beverages, PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) and The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE:COCO) posted improved dollar sales growth on a four-week basis relative to the prior month. Dollar sales growth slowed for other non-alcoholic beverage companies over the same period, including Keurig Dr Pepper (NASDAQ:KDP), Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Celsius Holdings (NASDAQ:CELH) and Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST).
In alcoholic beverages, Goldman Sachs reports stability in dollar sales growth for wine, beer and flavored malt beverages, and for ciders and seltzers when comparing two-week to four-week trends. Spirits displayed modest deceleration. On a company basis, dollar sales growth remained stable for Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ), Molson Coors (NYSE:TAP) and Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM) on a four-week basis versus last month, while dollar sales growth slowed for Brown-Forman (NYSE:BFb).
For tobacco and nicotine, the overall cigarette category saw dollar sales declines accelerate modestly in the most recent two-week span versus the prior four-week period. Dollar sales trends were stable for Altria (NYSE:MO) and British American Tobacco (NYSE:BTI) on a four-week basis versus last month, while Imperial Brands (NYSE:IMB) and Philip Morris (NYSE:PM) experienced modest slowing in dollar sales growth.
These NielsenIQ snapshots capture short-term changes in retail sales momentum across consumer staples. The pattern of mixed category performance and slowing near-term momentum underscores uneven demand within staples segments during the latest reporting window.