Net sales decreased 15% in Newell Brands’ Home and Commercial Solutions (CH&S) business, which is where Yankee Candle and WoodWick home fragrance brands reside. The company said the drop reflected soft demand across all businesses, which in addition to candles, includes products that fall outside Happi’s scope, such as Crockpot and Mr. Coffee appliances, commercial maintenance products sold by Rubbermaid as well as safety gear and sponges. Newell’s corporate sales fell 14%.

At the start of 2024, Newell announced an organizational realignment aimed at strengthening its front-end commercial capabilities in consumer understanding and brand communication. In addition to improving accountability, Newell said it expects the effort to further “unlock operational efficiencies and cost savings, reduce complexity and free up funds for reinvestment.”

Through the realignment, the company is making several organizational design changes. In its words, these entail starting up a cross-functional brand management organization; realigning business unit finance to support the model; simplifying and standardizing regional go-to-market organizations; and centralizing domestic retail sales teams, the digital technology team, business-aligned accounting personnel, the manufacturing quality team, and the human resources functions into the appropriate center-led teams to drive standardization, efficiency and scale with a “One Newell” approach.

Newell plans to further optimize its real estate footprint and pursue other cost reduction initiatives. These actions are expected to be “substantially implemented” by the end of 2024.

During the important holiday selling season in 2023, Yankee Candle opened five pop-up shops across the US.

When Q1 2024 results came in, revenues had yet to improve; the Home & Commercial Solutions segment reported a net sales drop of 4.3%, with declines coming in home fragrance.

Sales: $703 million

Yankee Candle remains a critical component of the Newell lineup

As the pandemic eased and the world reopened, sales of home fragrances have fallen dramatically. Corporate sales fell 11%. Newell’s home fragrance business was also impacted by the closure of 43 Yankee Candle stores.

Last Fall, Newell launched Friday Collective. The collection is said to energize and uplift users with vibrant colors and unique fragrance combination. Newell says the line evokes the “anticipation of the weekend.” Featuring a premium soy wax blend, natural fiber wicks and essential oils, the range includes four collections grouped by scent profile: Let’s Party, Lowkey Hype, Kickstart The Hustle and Joy Of Missing Out.

In January 2023, Mark Erceg was appointed CFO. Prior to joining Newell, he was CFO at Cerner Corp., a health care information technology company.

Things got worse for Newell in 2023. Q1 sales fell 24%. But company executives reiterated that Project Phoenix will be substantially implemented by year end. The program is designed to simplify the organizational structure, streamline the company’s real estate and centralize its supply chain functions (manufacturing, distribution, transportation and customer service). The goal, say company execs, is to transition a unified, “One Newell” go-to-market model in key international geographies and reduce overhead costs.

Sales: $712 million (est.) for home fragrance

Newell Brands sells a very wide range of products, from coffee makers to camping gear to candles. The latter includes the Yankee Candle, Chesapeake Bay Candle and WoodWick brands. That trio is accounted for in the company’s Home Solutions unit. Sales in that category rose 12% in 2021, which the company attributed to home fragrance and food. It makes sense, of course, as during the pandemic consumers were stuck at home and they spent time baking and lighting candles to create a better mood inside their homes…and inside themselves. Overall, the company’s sales were $2.8 billion in 2021.

According to Newell, the increase in home fragrance sales was primarily due to increases in the retail channel in the US and Europe, as well as Yankee Candle retail stores, partially offset by supply chain shortages, logistical constraints and permanent Yankee Candle retail store closures in 2020. The increase in net sales in the home fragrance business also reflected the “lapping of the prior-year impact of temporary retail store closures and supply chain disruptions resulting from temporary closure of its key manufacturing facility in Massachusetts”—issues stemming from the pandemic.

Yankee Candle’s Well Living Collection taps into the growing interest in wellness.

Operating income for 2021 increased to $313 million as compared to operating loss of $2 million in 2020, some of that loss is tied to the shuttering of the manufacturing facility in South Deerfield, MA, gross productivity and pricing. The increase in operating income also reflected savings from Yankee Candle retail store closures and the exiting of its fundraising business in the prior year.

The majority of the company’s manufacturing and distribution facilities reopened during the second and third quarter of 2020 and have since been operating at or near capacity with inventory levels replenished. That said, Newell noted that it does continue to face significant product, supply and labor shortages, capacity constraints and logistical challenges across its businesses, including port congestion, constrained shipping container availability and delays in carrier pickup, which have negatively impacted the company’s ability to satisfy demand for its products, creating order backlog in a number of categories.

In addition, the company continues to face significantly higher than expected inflation for commodities, primarily resin, sourced finished goods, transportation and labor, which had a negative high-single-digit-percentage impact to costs of products sold for 2021. Newell said these disruptions are expected to persist, at least in the near-term.
To help mitigate the negative impact of inflation to the operating performance of its businesses, the company secured selective pricing increases, accelerated productivity initiatives and deployed overhead cost containment efforts.

Many of these issues will be top of mind for Chris Peterson. In May, he was elevated from the role of chief financial officer and president, business operations, to president and chief financial officer of Newell Brands. Peterson will continue to lead all aspects of the company’s financial operations and maintain oversight of supply chain, procurement, IT, real estate and global business services and report to the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Ravi Saligram.

Sales: $756 million (estimated) for home fragrance products.
Corporate sales: $9.7 billion

Corporate sales fell more than 4% and home fragrance sales fell an estimated 3% at Newell Brands last year. Home fragrance sales were hampered by the closing of 75 underperforming Yankee Candle retail stores. These declines were partially offset by home fragrance growth in North America and EMEA.

Last year, the Newell Brands Home Fragrance Division, of which Yankee Candle is a part, opened a 20,300-sq. ft. R&D lab in South Deerfield, MA. The new R&D lab increases capability and capacity to develop, prototype, and test new innovations across the entire range of Yankee Candle, WoodWick and Chesapeake Bay Candle branded products. The new lab is nearly triple the size of the original R&D facility located in the division’s factory in Whately, MA and allows for product development and testing in candles, as well as adjacent home fragrance and auto freshener categories, areas that the division has been investing behind in recent years. At the time of the opening, the R&D function employed 65 people—up from five R&D employees three years ago.

Elsewhere, the company formed a partnership with TerraCycle to recycle its WoodWick candle collections.

As the new year got underway, Yankee introduced its second annual Scent of the Year—Awaken.

“We’ve learned through our research for Scent of the Year that there is a significant cultural shift away from always wanting more: more options, more communication, more material clutter.
Increasingly, people want to simplify their lives, unplug from the constant chatter of technology, and reconnect with themselves and with those they care about,” said Anna Whitton, vice president of marketing, The Yankee Candle Company. “Consumers are seeking out meaningful experiences that bring them a greater sense of self.”

Maybe, but by the end of March, many of Yankee’s customers were hoping the new year was just a bad dream. Corporate sales declined 7.6% to $1.9 billion in Q1 2020, with the home & outdoor living group (which includes candles) reporting a 10% decline. Of its 135 manufacturing and distribution facilities, nearly 20 were or are temporarily closed, the most significant of which are its South Deerfield, MA, home fragrance plant.

Sales: $780 million for home fragrance products.
Corporate sales: $8.6 billion.

Newell Brands is getting burned by its underperforming Yankee Candle business. In March, Newell brands announced that Michael Polk, the company’s president and chief executive officer since 2011, will retire at the end of the second quarter. The board has commenced a search process to identify the company’s next CEO.

“I have been privileged to lead Newell Brands for the past eight years. With the Accelerated Transformation Plan largely complete and the business beginning to turn, I believe now is the right time to transition to the next generation of leadership,” said Polk.

The company’s acelerated transformation plan, which was expanded in 2018, is designed to significantly increase shareholder value through both meaningful returns of capital to shareholders and strengthened operational and financial performance, while simultaneously deleveraging the balance sheet. Execution of the plan will result in a dramatic simplification of Newell’s operations. For example, in April, the company sold the United States Playing Card Company to Cartamundi Group.

In the first quarter of 2019, Newell Brands reported that net sales from continuing operations declined 5.5% to $1.7 billion. The home and outdoor living segment generated net sales of $627 million compared with $670 million in the prior year period, with the change primarily attributable to the impact of unfavorable foreign exchange, the exit of approximately 60 underperforming Yankee Candle retail stores and a sales decline from its Coleman brand, and declines in the remaining home fragrance retail stores.

Sales: $820 million for home fragrance products.
Corporate sales: $24.7 billion

In September, Newell agreed to acquire Chesapeake Bay Candle for $75 million. Chesapeake has sales of about $55 million.

From November to January, Yankee, WoodWick and Chesapeake Bay operated Candle Power, in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood. Billed as an experiential boutique, Candle Power featured immersive, multi-sensory displays, personalized candles and a scent bar.

Sales: $870 million (estimated) for home fragrance products.
Corporate sales: $13.3 billion.

After building a conglomerate out of seemingly disparate pieces, Newell Brands is breaking up a bit. The company entered Happi’s sector when it acquired Jarden Corporation in more than a year ago. Jarden had purchased Yankee Candle a few years before that. Now, Newell Brands has agreed to sell its winter sports business, which includes K2 and Atlas, to Kohlberg & Company. Earlier this year, Newell jettisoned its Zoot and Squadra clothing brands. Those moves followed the sale of its tool business to Stanley Black & Decker.

It remains a hodgepodge of brands in a variety of categories, but company executives are making long-term moves in home fragrance. Earlier this year, Newell Brands acquired candle-maker Smith Mountain Industries.