HOBOKEN, NJ. — The Hain Celestial Group’s management team has dubbed the company’s latest turnaround effort “Hain reimagined,” but more accurately, the company is placing an emphasis on growing its snack, baby and children’s food, and beverage brands in several developed markets.

The company also is seeking to stabilize its meal preparation and personal care businesses. Once that’s done, management will consider its strategic options for each business, said Wendy P. Davidson, president and chief executive officer, during the company’s Sept. 13 investor day conference with securities analysts.

“We have simplified our footprint in five core markets: the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland and Europe,” she said. “And we are aligning our organization and operating model to that footprint, leveraging our scale and realizing synergies across the business.

“Next, we will grow. Our growth plan is focused on share gain in three core better-for-you platforms: snacks, baby and kids and beverages.”

Supporting that growth will be channel expansion in away-from home and e-commerce, Ms. Davidson said.

“… Globally, away-from-home channels, including foodservice, convenience, hotel and travel, college and vending, provide a meaningful expansion opportunity for us and a way to reach consumers who are increasingly on the go,” she said. “These channels drive brand reach and visibility and they are price and margin accretive as shoppers are willing to pay more for convenience.

“We are establishing a dedicated team equipped with direct selling, broker and distributor relationship management and channel marketing resources to meaningfully accelerate our growth in away-from-home channels. And we believe our brand portfolio can be readily adapted for away from home, particularly in snacks, tea, yogurt, and in meat-free.”

Hain Celestial’s snack business, which includes such brands as Garden of Eatin’, Garden Veggie Snacks, Terra and more is expected to be a key driver of that growth. Garden Veggie is the company’s largest snack brand with distribution in such traditional channels as food, mass merchandising and natural.

“In baby and kids, we will deliver growth through innovation of our two leading brands, Earth’s Best and Ella’s Kitchen, with a focus in snacks and expanding beyond babies and toddlers to grow with our consumers as they get older,” Ms. Davidson said. “Within beverages, specifically tea, we expect to grow by innovating to deliver enhanced consumer benefits such as sleep and wellness and more convenient formats.”

Ari Labell, president of North America, said tea growth will focus on green and black tea, which are large segments of the market where Celestial Seasonings has a relatively small share.

“We will start by driving distribution in our highest velocity green and black SKUs (stock-keeping units),” he said. “We have long leveraged innovation to drive leadership in the tea category and plan to continue to do so by pinpointing consumer needs and developing products that specifically address those much like what we’ve done with Sleepytime melatonin to support better sleep.”  

Two businesses within the Hain Celestial portfolio in need of stabilization are non-dairy milks and plant-based meat alternatives.

“The non-dairy beverage market has softened, and we faced more intense competitive pressures, but we are starting to see bright spot that suggest a turnaround,” said Wolfgang Goldenitsch, Hain Celestial’s CEO of International. “In recent months, non-dairy has been a growing category within our European markets. Longer term, we still believe that non-dairy remains an attractive category as consumers continue to seek healthier and more environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional dairy.”

Meat alternative brands owned by Hain Celestial include Linda McCartney’s and Yves. While the category has softened, Mr. Goldenitsch expressed optimism that health, environmental and ethical concerns about animal proteins will drive future growth.

“Meat-free still has just around 1% to 2% share of global protein consumption, with significant headroom to grow,” he said. “We have a strong global platform in plant-based meat alternatives with leading brands in Canada and the UK. Linda McCartney’s is the No. 2 brand in the UK with more than 20% share in the frozen meat-free segment. Yves is the No. 1 plant-based alternative meat brand in Canada in the fresh segment, two-times our next closest competitor and the highest brand awareness in the category. As the category stabilizes, we believe our brands are well positioned to continue to grow share.”

Hain Celestial’s management team sees the bulk of its future growth coming from North America, with a top-line compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4%. The company’s international business is at greater than 1% CAGR.

“Our channel expansion plans in away-from-home and omnichannel ecommerce will be critical contributors to our growth plan, evolving our business to a more margin-accretive channel mix over time,” said Chris Bellairs, chief financial officer. “To deliver our top-line plan, we will make focused investments in a number of critical capability areas across brand building, channel expansion and innovation.”

The company is forecasting that by fiscal 2027, 5% of its sales will come from away from home and 10% will come from e-commerce.

Overall Hain Celestial expects between fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2027, organic sales will have a CAGR of 3% growth and adjusted EBITDA CAGR growth of 10%.

“Fiscal year ’24 is the first and foundational year in our plan,” Ms. Davidson said. “In this year, we will focus the business. In fiscal years ’25 and ’26, as the fuel program delivers more savings to the P&L, we will continue to invest for growth. We will begin to see our investments in channel expansion, brand building and innovation more meaningfully contribute to our top line and margins during that time. And by fiscal ’27, we expect to be operating in a sustainable, profitable, consistent growth model.”