Newsletter · 2026-09-26 · Ashutosh Agarwal

Consumer CEOs Stop Waiting for Inflation Relief and Fight for Share - Brand Voices - Week of September 26, 2026

Brand Voices for the week of September 26, 2026: consumer CEOs from McDonald's, Wayfair, Ralph Lauren and Peloton on how to grow when shoppers get no inflation relief, plus founder stories from Banza, Rothy's and Alter Eco and the read on GLP-1s, wholesale and Nike's decline.

Brand Voices

Week of September 26, 2026: Consumer CEOs Stop Waiting for Inflation Relief and Fight for Share

McDonald's stops waiting for inflation to go away, Wayfair and Ralph Lauren sell further up the income ladder, and Peloton bets on running. This week's consumer CEOs on how to grow when shoppers aren't getting any relief.

Podcasts published September 19–26, 2026

On Wednesday morning, McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski went on CNBC hours before the company's first investor day in three years and said something most consumer CEOs won't say out loud: the tough times aren't temporary.

"One of the things I've talked to our team about is we need to stop talking about that being a difficult environment and just say that is the environment."

The stock fell about 5% that day.

The rest of the week's podcasts had the same idea running through them. Nobody is counting on the economy to rescue them. Wayfair's Niraj Shah says his industry is growing at "call it zero." Alter Eco's CEO spent 2025 paying a 44% import charge on Swiss chocolate. What separates the winners, in their own telling, is simple: take customers from someone else, and don't raise prices faster than people are willing to pay.

Here's who spoke, and what they said.

In Their Own Words

Chris Kempczinski, CEO, McDonald's

Squawk on the Street, "10AM Hour: McDonald's & General Mills CEOs, CFTC Chairman, & You Muse You Lose? 9/23/26" (Sept 23, 2026); "11AM Hour: McDonald's CEO, Okta CEO & Trump-Xi Meeting on Deck 9/23/26" (Sept 23, 2026); "9AM HOUR: AI-Fueled Nasdaq Records, Meta's 'Muse' Momentum, McDonald's CEO Exclusive 9/23/26" (Sept 23, 2026)

This was the week's most important consumer CEO appearance. It ran across three hours of CNBC coverage on the morning of McDonald's investor day.

The big call: inflation isn't a blip. Kempczinski said McDonald's had hoped in the back half of last year that food inflation would ease. It didn't.

• Beef prices rose 14% last year, "after record beef inflation years prior."
• Over five years, beef is up "almost 100 percent" in McDonald's largest markets.
• He expects mid-single-digit inflation on input costs next year.
• In developed markets he expects restaurant-industry traffic to stay "largely flat" and inflation to stay elevated for "many more years."

"Across the board, we're seeing that inflation is sticky. It's sticky not just in the U.S., but around the world. And I think the drivers of that, we don't see changing."

His answer to that: when the market isn't growing, you have to take share from rivals. McDonald's put numbers on where that share will come from:

The target is 1.5 points of share gains in chicken and beverages by 2030. Combined with cost savings, he said, that gets margins to the "low to mid 50s" by 2030. The CNBC anchors also read out other investor-day targets: roughly $8.5 billion in franchisee support by 2036, about $100,000 of added cash flow per restaurant, new-unit growth of 4–4.5% in 2026–27 slowing to 3–3.5% in 2028–30, and 250 basis points (2.5 percentage points) of "gross restaurant level efficiency."

On pricing, he admitted a past mistake. McDonald's got into trouble, he said, when it "priced ahead of what the consumer's willingness to pay is." So even with costs rising, the company will be careful about passing them on: "At the end of the day, we've got to make sure that we're providing better value than any of our competitors."

On weight-loss drugs (GLP-1s): He put US adult usage at "around 10%, maybe a little bit higher." He doesn't see a meaningful hit to the business yet, but expects a bigger one if usage reaches 20–30%. His read on those customers:

"When people do go on GLP-1s, they still crave our food. They still love coming to McDonald's. But what they're buying, the portions that they're buying, that changes."

The menu will change to match. The anchors pointed to grilled chicken and egg bites.

On AI and the famous shake machine: Crew members currently spend two to three hours a week typing in inventory by hand. AI will take that over. Kitchen equipment will be connected to the cloud so the company can predict when a machine needs cleaning or is about to break, "so that notorious shake machine that people like to talk about, that's certainly going to be an opportunity."

On franchisees: About 15,000 franchisees and suppliers heard the strategy at the June global convention. "90 plus percent" were excited, he said, "but of course, very quickly thereafter, there were all sorts of questions around the investment required, the payback period."

On the stock: Shares hit an all-time high in February, then slowed in Q2. Carl Quintanilla noted the stock was $340 in March and is "off $100 since then." Kempczinski's reply: "We manage the business, we don't manage the stock price."

Why it matters: McDonald's is the reference point for the lower-income diner. When its CEO says he's stopped hoping for relief, it's a sign that "value" will be fought over through 2027. Other podcasts picked up the same message. The Loonie Hour, "McDonald's CEO: Food Inflation Is Here to Stay" (Sept 25, 2026), put it bluntly: if McDonald's, with all its buying power, "can't make food affordable, what about all these other chains?"

Niraj Shah, Co-founder & CEO, Wayfair

Business of Home Podcast, "Why Wayfair sees an opportunity at the high end" (Sept 21, 2026)

Shah described a home-furnishings industry that isn't growing, and said Wayfair is growing anyway.

• Industry growth is about zero. "In a great year in the industry, the industry might grow 4%... or 3.5%. You say, well, right now the industry is growing, call it zero, it's flat year over year."
• Growth comes from taking share. Companies growing 10–20% "are not doing it because the industry is growing 3.5% versus 0%... They're doing it because they're presenting customers with a really good, exciting opportunity to shop with them."
• The luxury bet is working. Perigold, Wayfair's luxury platform, is growing about 30% year to date. It hosts "hundreds of brands" that previously had no good way to reach wealthy online shoppers, and it serves interior designers through a simplified trade program.
• But don't ignore the mass market. "We're smaller in the high end than we are at mass. But the mass segment is actually growing quite quickly and accelerating for us." Overlooking it is "a misnomer," he said, because that's "where the bulk of the revenue is."

He also made a point about where spending has gone: "entertainment, leisure spend has really grown disproportionate to good spend over the last handful of years." In other words, people have been spending more on experiences than on things. And he gave credit to competitors doing well: HomeGoods, Ashley, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Living Spaces.

On customer loyalty, he used Starbucks as the example:

"Starbucks has a lot of competitors, you know, Dutch Brothers and others who are growing quite nicely... Now they've made some changes in their business and they're back to doing quite well."

Patrice Louvet, President & CEO, Ralph Lauren

The Nordy Pod, "Ep 119. Ralph Lauren CEO & President, Patrice Louvet" (Sept 21, 2026)

The host, Nordstrom co-CEO Pete Nordstrom, opened with the headline: Ralph Lauren has "the number one increase of any brand we have" at Nordstrom year to date.

Louvet spent nearly 30 years at Procter & Gamble before joining Ralph Lauren in May 2017. He was candid about the brand's past problems:

• It had lost Gen Z. "We had lost touch with that younger generation... That younger generation was shopping online. We weren't really present online. That younger generation was looking for inspiration on social media. We were not heavily engaged."
• It had been sold in too many places, too cheaply. Partners like Nordstrom told the company, "you're over-distributed, you're on promotion all the time." So Ralph Lauren cut back where it sells and pulled back on discounting. Off-price, he said, had become "kind of a business on its own," and there is "still work to do to dramatically reduce" it.
• Moving upmarket never stops. "When does the elevation strategy kind of stop?... It will never stop." In 1967, Ralph's first ties cost 2.5 times the price of a Christian Dior tie.

His name for the pricing strategy is "inclusive luxury," with price points at every level:

"You can get a pack of tennis socks for $12 bucks. And you can also, I think the highest price item we sold recently was a $320,000 watch."

And the idea that shapes how the brand deals with trends comes from the founder himself:

"Ralph actually says, I hate fashion. I hate trends... Because I don't want to be too hot and I don't want to be too cold."

Louvet said he and Ralph have lunch every week when neither is traveling, and "one of the key questions that always comes up is, are we staying true to who we are?" At the US Open, the brand decided to "move the camera" from the players and ball crews to the stylish people in the stands. That shift helped it speak to women differently. Licensing is also shrinking: "there's a point where we probably went overboard in terms of expanding the brand into every opportunity that just showed up."

Peter Stern, CEO, Peloton (with Nick Caldwell, Chief Product Officer)

The Exchange, "Inspiring the AI Trade, Peloton Product Launch, and Muni Bonds to the Rescue? 9/22/26" (Sept 22, 2026); Tech It Out, "Peloton's 3 new treadmills include its least expensive model..." (Sept 25, 2026)

Peloton's pitch this week: it's no longer just a bike company. It's going after runners.

Stern gave several numbers on CNBC:

• The subscription business has "roughly 70% margins" and "very stable revenue over the last few years."
• Capital spending is "roughly 1% of our revenues." Outside manufacturers make the hardware, so Peloton doesn't carry that cost on its own books.
• Peloton added "a couple hundred thousand new bike members" over the last year.
• The commercial business (equipment for gyms) posted double-digit growth. The first commercial-series bike goes on sale October 1.

"Gym operators are telling us that the only brand that potential gym goers ask for by name is Peloton."

On why running: "We're seeing a sort of a mass cultural shift toward running... Record turnout for marathons. We're seeing local run clubs come up everywhere."

On Tech It Out, Caldwell walked through the new treadmill lineup. All three ship October 1:

Customers' top two objections to buying a treadmill, Caldwell said, were "space and affordability." The Tread Flex is built to answer both.

The skeptic's view came from Morning Brew Daily, "MIT Dethrones Princeton as America's Top School & The Viral Debate Over Bringing Iced Coffee to Job Interviews" (Sept 23, 2026). Its hosts noted Stern sees the at-home running market growing 40% to $5.6 billion by 2030. But the stock is down 97% from its peak, and "running is pretty much free."

Danny Meyer, Founder, Shake Shack; Executive Chairman, Union Square Hospitality Group

How I Built This with Guy Raz, "Advice Line with Danny Meyer of Shake Shack" (Sept 24, 2026)

Meyer came on to promote a new book and advise callers. He offered the most practical definition of company culture heard on any podcast this week:

"Our culture is ultimately all of the wanted behaviors that we celebrate actively minus all of the unwanted behaviors that we tolerate."

• Why he dropped "family values." USHG used them for about 15 years, but "a business is not a family." Every time someone was let go, "people would go into deep grief because you don't fire a family member." He replaced them with "expected behaviors."
• The "day one mentality." It's why Union Square Cafe is 41 years old, Gramercy Tavern 31, and Shake Shack and The Modern 22. Every day, staff are asked to remember "the pride you felt when there was not a scratch in the floor, not a smudge on the wine glasses."
• A two-second test for any business. Watch the staff. If they're focused on the job and having fun with each other, "that joie de vivre... is going to become one of the ingredients in your meal as well."
• On taking a new job title. "I actually stepped up to become executive chairman. A lot of people thought I was retiring, which could not have been further from the truth."

His advice to a canned-cocktail founder struggling to stand out in the ready-to-drink aisle: "Who personifies your brand?... People love a good homemade story."

Brian Rudolph, Co-founder & CEO, Banza

How I Built This with Guy Raz, "Banza: Brian Rudolph. The Chickpea Pasta That Nearly Turned to Mush" (Sept 21, 2026)

Banza is now sold in more than 25,000 US stores. Rudolph gave an unusually detailed account of what happens when a food scare goes viral.

In 2024, an advocacy group published a report claiming high levels of glyphosate, a widely used weed killer, in Banza pasta. The group's network of influencers amplified it, and each retelling got more extreme.

• Sales fell 30% week over week. "I had someone call me crying because they were so scared."
• The lab took three weeks. Banza's results came back 98% lower than claimed and below the Environmental Working Group's already-conservative benchmark. But the level wasn't zero, and he didn't pretend it was: "What I had to sit with was that's not great either."
• The fix. Within weeks, Banza made its supply chain 100% traceable. It earned a "glyphosate residue free" certification from the Detox Project and moved toward a broader screen covering 400+ pesticides, with test results published.

"Maybe more than I wanted to admit, my identity had been wrapped up in this idea of I create healthy food."

He lost about 10 pounds during the crisis. He also went back over the early growth story: a Target trial in "a couple hundred stores," bright orange packaging, and building "more followers than any pasta brand" on social media, which helped in retailer meetings.

Dana Kwanbeck, CEO, Rothy's

The Modern Retail Podcast, "How Rothy's built a DTC footwear brand with staying power" (Sept 19, 2026)

Rothy's (the washable knit flats made from recycled plastic bottles) has passed $200 million in revenue ten years after launch. It has 40 stores and sells wholesale through Nordstrom. Many brands that started online around the same time have struggled or changed course. Kwanbeck's explanation for why Rothy's hasn't: iconic, "front of the closet" products worn often, and growth that was "disciplined."

• Stores and wholesale help online sales. Rothy's first store opened in 2019 on Fillmore Street in San Francisco, a 300-square-foot shop. Stores now average about 1,500 square feet. In markets without Rothy's stores, wholesale partners "really light up" e-commerce.
• "Retail 3.0, going backwards." She argued that many of the best brands started in wholesale before selling direct. Rothy's is doing the reverse, and using its customer data to choose partners: "Our customers are shopping there anyway."
• Growing without losing the core. The clog "has become such a meaningful part of our business," even though it looks nothing like the original pointed flat. The fall launch of the Point 3.0 uses "stitch to sole" glueless construction.

Her filter for every new product: "Style, comfort, usability, washability, sustainability in that order." Her 10-year goal: "Scale, scale, scale, scale."

Keith Bearden, CEO, Alter Eco

Shelf Help: The Tactical CPG Podcast, "From Board Seat to Buyer: The Alter Eco Turnaround | Keith Bearden, Alter Eco" (Sept 25, 2026)

This was the most detailed look this week at how a small packaged-food brand deals with commodity prices and tariffs.

Bearden sat on Alter Eco's board for about three years. When the private-equity owner asked him to step in as CEO in 2023, he offered to buy the company instead. He closed on December 22, 2023, backed by Trek One, a Houston investor with oil-and-gas roots. The turnaround came from three changes:

• Headcount. He replaced an expensive San Francisco setup with outsourced quality control and marketing. Trek One took over back-office work.
• Logistics. Chocolate made in Switzerland was being shipped through the Panama Canal to Oakland, even though 60% of sales are on the East Coast. On January 1, 2024, the warehouse moved to Columbus, Ohio. That saved over $1 million a year, cut about 20 days of lead time, and reduced the carbon footprint by almost 30%.
• Trade spend (the discounts and promotions paid to retailers). He cut it from 25–26% of sales to about 19%. Promotions on impulse-buy truffles weren't adding sales: selling one for 79 cents instead of 99 cents "is not going to make any difference."

The company was profitable in Q1 2024. Inventory write-offs dropped from about $700,000 in 2023 to under $70,000 in 2024.

Then came tariffs. Swiss imports were hit with a 39% tariff on top of an existing 5% duty, 44% on every bar. He decided not to pass it on to shoppers:

"Cocoa beans didn't kill us in 2025. Tariffs did."

"We didn't go out and raise our prices because of tariffs. We raised our prices because of the cacao market." Alter Eco now pays 15%, and the earlier overpayments are "coming back in with 6% interest."

Consumer Read

1. "Sticky" inflation is now the planning assumption, not the worry. McDonald's expects mid-single-digit input-cost inflation next year and flat industry traffic. Alter Eco absorbed a 44% tariff for a year rather than raise shelf prices. The CNBC anchors noted that staples companies have been saying the same thing: "it's tough to take price in this environment, even with your own costs elevated." The lesson both CEOs drew is to protect value first and pass through costs slowly.

2. The split between high- and low-income shoppers is still wide, and brands are covering both ends. Wayfair's luxury platform Perigold is up about 30% this year, but Shah insists the mass market is where the money is, and that it's accelerating. Ralph Lauren sells $12 socks and a $320,000 watch under one brand. Meanwhile McDonald's, the everyday benchmark for lower-income diners, is the one warning that people feel squeezed on "the outlook around cost of living."

3. Selling through stores and wholesale partners is back in favor. Rothy's credits wholesale with lifting its online sales. Ralph Lauren is winning at Nordstrom after cutting distribution and discounts. The mistake everyone points to is Nike. Brew Markets, "Novo's Next Act & What Happened to Nike?" (Sept 21, 2026), tallied the damage: market value fell from $260 billion in November 2021 to about $50 billion; Nike dropped out of the S&P 100 for the first time in 18 years; and On and Hoka filled the shelves Nike left behind when it pulled away from retailers.

4. Health is changing what people buy, not whether they buy. McDonald's is redesigning portions for GLP-1 users who "still crave our food." Banza built a 25,000-store brand on protein-rich chickpeas. Cloud 9fin, "Will protein-maxxing keep Chobani king?" (Sept 21, 2026), reported that Chobani's debt is now priced like a much safer borrower, partly because doctors are telling GLP-1 patients to eat more protein. Peloton is betting on the surge in running, from record marathon turnout to local run clubs.

Changes at the Top

Several names on our tracking list have changed:

• Walmart: John Furner succeeded Doug McMillon (Feb. 1, 2026).
• Target: Michael Fiddelke succeeded Brian Cornell (Feb. 1, 2026). Cornell is now executive chair.
• Coca-Cola: Henrique Braun succeeded James Quincey (March 31, 2026).
• Disney: Josh D'Amaro succeeded Bob Iger (March 18, 2026).
• Lululemon: Heidi O'Neill, a longtime Nike executive, started as CEO this month. Calvin McDonald resigned after founder Chip Wilson's public campaign against the company. The Journal, "The Epic Drama at Lululemon" (Sept 25, 2026), reported that the stock fell when she was named, partly because at Nike she led the direct-to-consumer push that backfired. On her first day at headquarters in Vancouver, she joined employees for a yoga class.

Quote of the Week

"We need to stop talking about that being a difficult environment and just say that is the environment."

Chris Kempczinski, CEO, McDonald's, on Squawk on the Street, "10AM Hour: McDonald's & General Mills CEOs, CFTC Chairman, & You Muse You Lose? 9/23/26" (Sept 23, 2026)