NPX-Consumer-30.
Brand trust. Employee moat. GICS 30.

The Consumer-30 adapts the NPX-100 eight-axis framework for GICS sector 30 companies. Stakeholder Trust (SK) is upweighted from 7% to 10% because consumer brand equity is fundamentally an aggregation of trust signals — employee loyalty, supply chain transparency, product safety communication, and consumer NPS — that compound differently from the B2B stakeholder trust captured in other NPX sub-indices. Forecast Calibration (FC) rises marginally to 21% because consumer staples CEOs who set and miss volume-growth targets do so in an operationally well-understood category where execution discipline is fully within management control.

8gate-clear candidates

0at constituent threshold (97+)

4watch list (85–96)

4engagement pool (75–84)

GICS 30Consumer Staples only

Weight variant · CS-30 vs NPX-100 base

SK elevated to 10%. Consumer brand trust is a compounding asset — the methodology should measure it.

SK rises from 7% → 10% because consumer staples brand equity is fundamentally a trust accumulation — employee morale, supply-chain transparency, product-quality communication, and consumer loyalty programs all feed into the same underlying asset that determines repeat purchase rates over decades. Costco's SK=92 — driven by minimum wage leadership, employee retention above retail industry average, and a member renewal rate above 90% — is the definition of compounding consumer trust.

Axis	NPX-100	CS-30	Δ	Sector rationale
FC Forecast Calibration ↑	22%	21%	−1	Marginally reduced. Consumer staples EPS guidance is highly predictable but organic volume guidance (the more informative signal) is less consistently published. CS-30 FC sub-criteria weight organic volume growth target delivery alongside EPS precision.
EQ Earnings Quality	18%	17%	−1	Marginally reduced. Consumer staples accounting is relatively clean but channel-fill dynamics, trade-spend accruals, and promotion timing can obscure underlying sell-through performance. EQ-C1 (trade spend/revenue ratio transparency) added.
CD Capital Discipline	15%	15%	0	Unchanged. Dividend growth track record, organic-vs-acquired revenue proportion, brand investment vs buyback discipline, and M&A track record scored identically to NPX-100. Consumer staples CD failures (Kraft Heinz write-down) are among the most visible in any GICS sector.
GV Governance Integrity	15%	14%	−1	Marginally reduced. Consumer staples governance failures are consequential but less systemic than financial-sector equivalents. Founder/family concentration is common (McCormick, Brown-Forman) and scored in context of alignment vs entrenchment.
ST Strategic Transparency	10%	9%	−1	Marginally reduced. Consumer staples strategic targets are less frequently updated mid-cycle than industrial operational frameworks, and organic volume guidance is the primary ST signal rather than elaborate multi-year frameworks.
EC Error Culture	8%	8%	0	Unchanged. Consumer staples EC is primarily scored on product recall communication speed, food safety disclosure quality, and supply-chain disruption candor. Companies that hide product safety issues and delay recalls score at 0 on EC regardless of financial performance.
SK Stakeholder Trust ↑ PRIMARY	7%	10%	+3	Elevated — the highest SK weight of any NPX sub-index. CS-30 SK sub-criteria: employee retention rate vs retail/consumer industry benchmark, consumer NPS vs category average, supply-chain transparency (ethical sourcing disclosure quality), and product safety recall communication speed.
DH Durability Horizon	5%	6%	+1	Marginally elevated. Consumer staples DH reflects brand age (decades of category trust accumulation), private-label threat resistance, and category position stability. Costco's membership moat and McCormick's flavor-recipe database are DH assets unique to consumer staples.
CS-30 FORMULA: C = (FC×0.21) + (EQ×0.17) + (CD×0.15) + (GV×0.14) + (ST×0.09) + (EC×0.08) + (SK×0.10) + (DH×0.06) + B \| Bonus max 5 \| Axis scores 0–100

Additional eligibility gates

GATE-7 — Material product recall communication timeline exceeding 72 hours from confirmed internal identification to public FDA/regulatory notification, where the recall involved confirmed health risk to consumers, within the preceding 5 years
GATE-8 — Confirmed child-labor or forced-labor finding in Tier 1 or Tier 2 supply chain (verified by third-party audit, not just internal claim) within the preceding 36 months, without evidence of remediation and honest public disclosure

Sector-specific sub-criteria

SK-C1 — Employee wage premium: hourly starting wage vs US federal minimum wage multiple, benchmarked against consumer/retail industry average. Costco's minimum wage leadership (SK signal at 3.3× federal minimum) is the CS-30 benchmark
SK-C2 — Member/consumer renewal rate: annual renewal rate for membership businesses; repeat-purchase rate (tracked via loyalty program disclosure) for CPG companies. Proxy for brand-level trust compounding
EQ-C1 — Trade spend transparency: ratio of disclosed trade spend to net revenue, compared against category peers, and trend direction (increasing trade spend as % of revenue is an EQ signal of volume pressure masked by price promotion)

▲ Leading CS-30 composite · #1 Consumer-30 founding pool

Costco Wholesale Corporation

COST · NASDAQ · United States · Consumer Staples Distribution & Retail

87.3

Watch List · 85–96

Costco leads CS-30 by a wider margin than it leads NPX-100 — because the SK upweight from 7% to 10% amplifies SK = 92 substantially. Costco has built the highest-SK consumer staples profile in the world: 90%+ membership renewal rates across 18 consecutive years, $29/hour minimum starting wage, 90%+ employee retention rate, and a CEO who discusses supply-chain ethics as a P&L issue in quarterly earnings calls.

FC = 89: Costco has delivered annual EPS guidance within stated range or exceeded it for 14+ consecutive years. EC = 82 from candid explanation of membership fee increases and margin compression during inflation periods. GV = 85. CD = 86 from consistent warehouse-count targets. The membership business model (customers pre-pay for the right to shop) is the most transparent customer-trust signal in retail.

SK 92 — highest in CS-30 pool FC 89 — 14+ year guidance streak Membership renewal 90%+

▼ Lowest CS-30 composite in engagement pool

Brown-Forman Corporation

BF.B · NYSE · United States · Distillers & Vintners

82.1

Engagement Pool · 75–84

Brown-Forman's 82.1 reflects the CS-30's framework applied to a family-controlled spirits company with genuinely excellent brand equity but structural governance constraints. GV = 77 from Brown family voting control (concentrated family ownership without independent board majority). FC = 81 from limited organic volume guidance specificity — spirits category guidance is less precise than packaged food.

What Brown-Forman does well: DH = 88 — Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey is the most recognized American spirits brand globally, and the Tennessee-crafted distilling process qualifies legally as a protected geographic designation. Brand loyalty exceeds 80% repeat-purchase rate. SK = 84. EC = 79 from candid commentary on travel-retail channel recovery post-COVID. Family-control GV constraint is the primary headwind.

DH 88 — Jack Daniel's brand moat GV 77 — family control

8 candidates · ranked by CS-30 composite

Consumer trust compounds over decades. The CS-30 measures it directly.

The CS-30 founding pool focuses on consumer staples companies with documented SK records across multiple decades — renewal rates, wage leadership, supply-chain transparency, and product-recall behavior. The 8 candidates are all NPX-100-adjacent: COST is a founding member; CHD, PG, CL, HSY, CASY, MKC, and BF.B are sector additions. NEW marks companies not in the NPX-100 founding pool.

#	Company · sub-industry	Segment	CS-30 Score	Band	Category strength
1	Costco Wholesale CorporationCOST · NASDAQ · USConsumer Staples Distribution & Retail	Warehouse Club	87.3	Watch List	SK 92 — highest Consumer-30 composite leader. 90%+ membership renewal 18 consecutive years. $29/hr starting wage. 14+ year EPS guidance delivery streak (FC 89). The membership business model is the most transparent consumer-trust signal in retail globally.
2	Church & Dwight Co Inc NEWCHD · NYSE · USHousehold Products	Household Products	86.7	Watch List	FC 90 — highest CS-30 Forecast Calibration and one of the top 5 in the entire NPX family. Church & Dwight has delivered organic volume growth within guidance range for 25+ consecutive quarters. EC 82 from transparent commodity-cost headwind communication. Arm & Hammer brand: 175-year category presence. CD 87, GV 86.
3	Procter & Gamble Company NEWPG · NYSE · USHousehold Products	Multi-Category CPG	86.1	Watch List	DH 90 — deepest brand moat in the CS-30 pool. 65+ brands in 10 categories, all built over decades of consumer trust. GV 88, the highest in the CS-30 pool. FC 87 from consistent organic growth guidance delivery. SK 85. EC 78. P&G's restructuring communication (100+ brand divestitures) is the CS-30 EC benchmark.
4	Colgate-Palmolive Company NEWCL · NYSE · USHousehold Products	Oral Care / Personal Care	86.0	Watch List	DH 88 — #1 toothpaste share globally for 6+ consecutive decades. Oral care habit formation is the most durable consumer DH story: the brand that parents buy becomes the brand children buy. GV 85. FC 86 from 3+ year organic growth guidance delivery. SK 83. EC 77.
Engagement Pool · 75–84 · gate-clear, below watch-list threshold
5	Hershey Company NEWHSY · NYSE · USPackaged Foods & Meats	Confectionery	83.6	Engagement Pool	EC 80 — commodity price transparency leader in confectionery sector. Hershey explicitly quantifies cocoa-cost impact in earnings calls, unusual for a category that historically hid input-cost headwinds in adjusted EPS. SK 85. DH 86 from seasonal purchase habit formation. GV 78 from Hershey Trust voting control. CD 83.
6	Casey's General Stores Inc NEWCASY · NASDAQ · USConsumer Staples Distribution & Retail	Convenience Retail	83.4	Engagement Pool	SK 88 — highest rural community trust profile in the CS-30 pool. Casey's serves communities where it is often the only food-service option — a community-anchor model that creates genuine loyalty beyond price. FC 84 from store-count and EBITDA target delivery. EC 78. CD 86 from organic store growth discipline. GV 83.
7	McCormick & Company Inc NEWMKC · NYSE · USPackaged Foods & Meats	Flavors & Spices	83.2	Engagement Pool	DH 87 — proprietary flavoring database is the deepest institutional knowledge moat in consumer staples. McCormick's R&D team has developed proprietary flavor compounds (not patentable) for 130+ years; this tacit knowledge cannot be acquired by buying a competitor. GV 79 from dual-class structure (McCormick family). FC 82. SK 84. CD 83 from Cholula/Frank's acquisitions delivering as guided.
8	Brown-Forman Corporation NEWBF.B · NYSE · USDistillers & Vintners	Spirits / Whiskey	82.1	Engagement Pool	DH 88 — Jack Daniel's Tennessee designation is a protected geographic identity moat. GV 77 from Brown family voting control without independent board majority. FC 81 from limited organic volume guidance specificity. SK 84 from brand loyalty. EC 79. If governance structure normalizes, CS-30 composite moves to 84–86.

Disclosures · methodology status · what this is not

These are founding estimates. The methodology is in development.

Methodology status

NPX-Consumer-30 methodology v0.1 is in development and has not been hash-committed. All 8 candidates carry K-basis (steward estimate) scores pending primary-source verification. The methodology will be published with a SHA-256 hash when it reaches v1.0 stability. SK sub-criteria (employee retention rates, consumer NPS, supply-chain audit results) require primary-source verification before v1.0.

What this is not

These scores are not a constituent list, watch list, or investment recommendation. NPX-Consumer-30 is planned for launch alongside the NPX-100 first quarterly publication cycle in 2027-Q1. No score published here implies a company meets the NPX-Consumer-30 constituent standard.

NPX-Consumer-30 v0.1 · methodology in development · not yet hash-published · GICS sector 30 · 8 candidates · 0 constituents · all scores K-basis steward estimates · parent NPX-100 v2.0.0 hash 438537fac91ca1fe9b582a2f41bbba8a789132e516eb9bfee2cedc75fa0c1c04

NPX-100 methodology → NPX-100 founding rankings Index family overview

NPX-Consumer-30.Brand trust. Employee moat. GICS 30.