One month into the season, cough-cold illness rates are up 3%

NEW YORK — It's one month into the cough-cold season and illness rates are up 3%, noted Matthew Mannelly, Prestige Brands president and CEO, during a quarterly conference call held Thursday. 

 

"I think that's a little bit disappointing," Mannelly said. "However, I would also caution people on that. Candidly, it really doesn't matter what incidences are in October. It's such a small part of the season. It's really incidences in November and December, because that's when the season begins to heat up and that also will determine retailers in terms of their reorder patterns for the next quarter."

 

Going into this season, retailers reorder patterns for cough-cold products was light. "In the [Perrigo fiscal] first quarter of 2014, we shipped a large amount of OTC product as retailers pushed for an early buy-in to the season," explained Judy Brown, Perrigo CFO and EVP, in a separate call with analysts. "Due to the relatively milder severity of cough/cold/flu incidents and lower retail foot traffic levels seen last winter, many of our retail customers remain cautious about repeating that buying pattern this season."