Food & Beverage
Accelerate growth and meet consumer demand for ‘healthier’ while driving sustainability initiatives and regulatory compliance for maximum efficiency.
What are the trends impacting the food & beverage sector landscape?
Consumer preferences and regulatory changes are reshaping food and beverage products. What are they and how will they affect your business?
- Consumers Demand 'Healthy and Natural'
- F&B Product Transparency and Safety
- Smart Sustainability Initiatives
- Rising Commodity Costs
Our goal is to make the most delicious food with the best quality ingredients, and this brings complexity into our supply chain.
Consumers Demand ‘Healthy and Natural'
How will food & beverage sector companies challenge their own product portfolios to be more aligned with consumer preferences?
Consumers in all regions are increasingly interested in health and wellness. For the food and beverage products they consume, this means scouring labels for more healthy and natural ingredients. They want food and beverage products which are more aligned with a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their families.
Many (CPG) food & beverage sector manufacturers are responding by evaluating current product portfolios to determine how they can be reformulating old brands and launching trendy new ones to be more aligned with consumer trends. These reformulation efforts to reduce some ingredients and add others creates a significant workload on formulators, scientists and the entire R&D department.
F&B manufacturers must consider how to safely and sustainably accelerate reformulation efforts through adoption of new technologies such as virtual product formulation, artificial intelligence, advanced data analytics and other technologies. For instance:
- Leveraging AI and Machine Learning in the lab to identify the best possible new formulations that have a better nutritional profile without sacrificing taste and mouthfeel.
- Utilize 'formulate to cost' tools to design new product formulas while maintaining critical product margins.
Food safety regulations remain a critical concern globally, particularly as consumers become increasingly conscious and concerned about the ingredients present in the products they consume.
F&B Product Transparency and Safety
Product labeling and ingredients regulations are getting more complex in the food and beverage manufacturing industry to manage. Regulations, such as those from the FDA or other governmental bodies, are often different from one country to another and each region must verify compliance with local laws. This complexity presents a problem that can dramatically slow down global launches.
The key to managing transparency and safety properly is to have digital continuity throughout the product lifecycle. In the event that multiple systems to capture data are involved, it can be difficult to have a single source of truth to be able to get a real-time picture of product data. People may end up working with data that could be outdated, leading to poor execution and, in worst case scenarios, product recall events.
People need to feel confident in the quality and safety of your products to drive brand retention and build market share. Should people have an unease about your brand, it's difficult to rebuild their confidence. Food and beverage companies need to ensure their brand base in their ability to secure the integrity of their products from manufacturing through consumer usage.
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Smart Sustainability Initiatives
More consumers are responding to products that reflect their desire to live a healthier lifestyle. A key area is the sustainability of packaging as consumers want materials that are gentler to the earth. In turn, many companies have internal efforts to drive sustainable portfolios with regard to packaging materials and production methods like blue manufacturing. If you are the food and beverage director of packaging, it is likely you are continuously investigating new materials along with evolving regulations on packaging in the geographies you operate in.
Food and beverage marketing teams are also likely interested in the product claims that packaging materials may enable. Since consumers are looking for more recyclable/biodegradable product packaging, it may be beneficial from a business standpoint to be able to truthfully make claims about your sustainable packaging materials. Sometimes this comes from collaborations with recycling companies or other packaging suppliers. In many cases, the investigation of new materials starts in the R&D laboratory.
Experience Lower Costs with Optimized Supply Chain Planning
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform creates a seamless integrated supply chain from farmer to consumer, ensuring ethical sourcing and procurement, accurate planning and efficient production and delivery
Rising Commodity Costs
As particular ingredients increase in cost, food and beverage companies must look at reformulation of their ingredients in order to maintain or improve internal margins. Many manufacturers of food and beverage products companies are driving ‘design for cost’ strategies and implementing multi-plant cost optimization by leveraging raw materials availability in different plants around the world at the lowest cost. But companies need to also be mindful that cost-cutting initiatives, while critical, can be short-lived and must also be complemented by identifying and taking advantage of marketplace opportunities.
One critical aspect of cost control can be to manage your supply chain data properly. Many food and beverage supply chains can be large and vast, and different regions may have secured better pricing for particular ingredients. By having visibility to all the costs in your supply chain, there is the potential to source larger amounts of ingredients from particular suppliers, gaining volume discounts in the process.
Rethink Food & Beverage Manufacturing and Supply Chain Planning
Gain the agility you need with optimized supply chain planning that delivers the best answers even in times of uncertainty
View Customer Reports from Food and Beverage Companies
Customer Report: KIRIN
Food & Beverage Industry
Customer Report: LOTTE
Food & Beverage Industry
FAQ
The food and beverage (F&B) industry within the CPG industry includes the many companies involved in the packaging and distributing of food and beverage products for consumers. This includes frozen & unfrozen packaged foods, and both alcoholic & non-alcoholic beverages.
Some examples of typical food and beverage products available in retail channels include butter, breakfast cereals, milk, crackers, orange juice, cans of soup, potato chips, frozen vegetables, salad dressing, wine and more.
In the lab, digital capabilities are leading to new discoveries like alternative protein products and new, active ingredients for gut health. Managing the digital continuity of each product, F&B companies are accelerating the scale up of new products from lab to manufacturing and discovering new efficiencies in the supply chain.
In the US, the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) plays a very prominent role setting and enforcing regulations in the industry. In Europe, The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) provides independent advice on existing and emerging food-related risks. Like the FDA, the mission of EFSA is to protect human life and health. Food Safety Asia (FSA) is a network that connects food safety institutions in the Asia, Pacific, and Middle East regions.
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