Did Glanbia Performance Nutrition benefit from pent-up global demand or is something else at play here? Glanbia Performance Nutrition 21Q1 net revenues increased 17.6% YoY on a like-for-like basis from both strong pricing and volume increases. While that growth is extremely strong, leadership did note on the earnings call that about one-third of the consumption growth can be attributed to inventory builds with retailers. As part of the Glanbia Performance Nutrition transformation program, the company again adjusted the organizational and reporting structure. Instead of the recently instituted “Lifestyle”, “Sports Nutrition” and "International/DTC", it will now be "Americas" and "International" only. That being said, Glanbia Performance Nutrition hired two new leadership positions; Chief Growth Officer (focuses by brand) and Chief Commercialization Officer (focuses on channels). Additionally, with almost three-fourths of Glanbia Performance Nutrition revenue is now made up of Optimum Nutrition and Slim Fast. Even with increased advertising spend on both brands planned through the entire 2021, I do think these brands have different 5-year trajectories though, and outside of increased CAPEX spending, Glanbia will need to utilize it's strengthened balance sheet to be more aggressive with M&A. We've yet to see any deals yet from Glanbia Performance Nutrition side while competitors have been gobbling up prime targets.

While the “COVID-19 Effect” challenged Glanbia in 2020, the well-timed transformation plan and improving environment around long-term secular trends should make the company stronger for the future. That being said, problems still lie on recalibrating the GPN brand portfolio and one they will have to address head-on in the next year if they want to sustain their market leadership against large CPG portfolios like Nestle.