Strong flu season drives traditional remedies

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged early on in the 2014-15 season that this year’s flu shot didn’t match up well with this year’s predominant H3N2 flu virus, which set the stage for a strong season. Annual sales of cough, cold and flu remedies were on the rise for the first two months of the season. According to IRI data for the 52 weeks ended Nov. 30, sales of cold/allergy/ sinus liquids and powders were up 11.6% to $1.2 billion across total U.S. multi-outlets.

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Though almost 10% of that sales volume can be attributed to the new allergy remedy Nasacort 24HR, sales of traditional cold remedies were up significantly as well. For example, sales of Reckitt Benckiser’s Mucinex Fast Max were up 7.6% to $101.2 million. And sales of Procter & Gamble’s combo pack of Wicks NyQuil and Wicks DayQuil were up 24.5% to $48.5 million in the period.



Sales of cough-cold tablets were up, too, by 1.8% to $4.3 billion in the 52-week period. Of note among tablets was Bayer’s Alka-Seltzer Plus cold remedy, sales of which were up 6.2% to $205.1 million. And sales of Vicks DayQuil tablets totaled $67.3 million, up 12.1%.



A strong flu season year-to-date has helped to contribute to the sale of products correlating with fever, noted Helen of Troy CEO Julien Mininberg in a conference call with analysts. “That’s where we’ve seen a lot of strength actually all season long, this season,” he said. “And yet much earlier in the season, the cold and cough type of incidents — things more like congestion that’s more correlated to [the sale of] humidifiers was actually quite weak.” Sales of humidifiers for the 52 weeks through Nov. 30 were relatively flat, up 0.2% to $282.8 million.