(NYSE: CLX) managed to improve its gross margin by 5.6 percentage points year over year in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. That's a huge improvement that was helped along by a drop in the rate of cost increases that the company faced due to inflation.

But inflation has not gone away. In fact, management made sure to highlight two important trends on this front when it spoke to analysts. Investors need to understand exactly what is going on with inflation and what it means for Clorox's business from here.

Inflation waxes and wanes, but it generally doesn't go away. There are sometimes periods of deflation, but they have usually been pretty brief. So rising costs are pretty much a constant that businesses have to navigate. Consumer staples companies like Clorox have a well-worn playbook on this front.

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Source Fool.com