CPG Careers
CPG Careers

For Media · June 2026

Press Summary

The 2026 Mid-Year CPG Compensation Report

Real compensation from 527 active roles across 38 CPG companies. Pulled from public career pages between May 12 and June 4, 2026. Every company named. Methodology fully disclosed.

For Journalists

The full report is available for review now. We are happy to share it under embargo through Thursday June 12 at 8am MT. Reply to andy@highaltitudepartners.com to confirm the embargo and we will send the full PDF and the underlying dataset.

The three findings

Finding 01

$176K

Median remote CPG comp, 2026

Remote roles pay more than New York

The median remote CPG role in this dataset clears $176K, ahead of every named metropolitan market in the report. New York Metro lands at $132K, the Bay Area at $161K. The cause is composition: the roles companies are still posting fully remote in 2026 skew senior and tech-heavy, while physical-market hiring skews toward plant, fulfillment, and retail roles.

Finding 02

+$20K

Senior IC median lead over Director median

Senior individual contributors out-earn Directors

Median Senior IC comp lands at $187,500. Median Director comp lands at $167,500. Sample sizes of 47 and 49 respectively, so the cells are real. Three years ago this would have been a typo. Engineering and product roles at AG1, Thrive Market, Instacart, and Hungryroot drive the lift — companies that need to retain senior technical talent are paying to keep them off the management ladder.

Finding 03

54%

Of 2026 CPG roles disclose equity or RSUs

Equity is now standard, not exotic

Fifty-four percent of every role in the dataset discloses equity. Not a subset. Not just emerging brands. The Enterprise $1B+ companies disclose equity at roughly the same rate as the Growth-stage brands. Equity at the Director level and above is now a baseline expectation across the industry, not a differentiator.

Methodology

The report is built from a single dataset: 527 active job postings captured from the public career pages of 38 named CPG companies between May 12 and June 4, 2026.

Every role with a disclosed pay range was included. Hourly rates were annualized at 2,080 hours. Equity, bonus, and commission were noted where disclosed but not folded into the base figures — meaning senior cells are likely understated, not overstated.

All cell-level numbers in the report are reported as median and 25th/75th percentile. We did not survey anyone. We did not buy a third-party dataset. Every number in the report can be traced back to a posted job listing.

The 38 companies span enterprise food and beverage, growth-stage emerging brands, beauty and personal care, household, pet, supplements, restaurant chains, and grocery and meal-delivery e-commerce.

About the publisher

The report is published by High Altitude Partners, an executive search firm for CPG and food and beverage, and distributed by CPG Careers, the curated job board for the industry. Both are operated by Andy Roads, founder of High Altitude Partners.

Contact

Andy Roads
Founder, High Altitude Partners

andy@highaltitudepartners.com

Available for interviews, custom data cuts on request, and follow-up on any finding.

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