The News
Reckitt’s North America sales fell 1.3% in Q3 2026 because its St. Peters, Missouri plant couldn’t make enough Lysol. Line upgrades there ran longer than planned. Reckitt cut its full-year sales forecast.
Reckitt now expects core sales growth of 3.5% to 4.5%, down from 4% to 5%. Slower vitamin sales in China also played a part.
North America brought in £649 million in the quarter. Reckitt’s core business grew 3.3%.
The details
The lines came back short. About four lines at St. Peters came back from upgrade downtime with less capacity than Reckitt expected. The gap showed up late in the quarter.
Some Lysol ran out on store shelves. Reckitt canceled promotions it couldn’t supply and paid retailers penalties.
Lysol sell-out grew by a low single-digit percentage.
North America volume grew 0.7% even as sales fell, because price and mix fell 2.0%. Reckitt has been cutting prices for a weaker consumer.
In Q1, sales fell 0.9% while volume grew 1.5%.
Worth knowing
More line work is coming at Reckitt’s US Hygiene plants. Reckitt plans to invest up to $600 million in the US. Much of $200 million of that goes to upgrading those plants, the same kind of work behind Q3’s shortfall.
What peers are doing
Clorox finished its US ERP switch in fiscal 2026. Lapping retailers’ early orders before the cutover took about 13.5 points off its organic sales in its fiscal Q4. Like Reckitt, Clorox lost sales to a planned change in its own operations. (More)
What’s next
Reckitt expects North America and Lysol to bounce back in Q4. Lysol sell-out returned to mid-single-digit growth in October.
(Photo: Bnilsen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)
