Manufacturers in the food and beverage industry are increasingly turning to mergers and acquisitions to keep pace with consumer demands. In an era where speed is critical, many companies seem to find it to be faster and easier to form a partnership or make an acquisition, rather than invest in R&D or develop their own new products and brands from the ground-up.

The factors driving the trend

As economic recovery gains momentum and fuels a robust growth period in the food and beverage industry, expansion hungry manufacturers are eager to take advantage of new trends and the growing consumer obsession with the quality of the food they eat. Healthy snacks, plant proteins, clean labels, exotic taste experiences, neuro-nutrition, and socially mindful companies are all top-of-mind topics for today’s shoppers, especially millennials. Consumers now prioritize locally grown foods, sustainable farming, and organic and non-GMO foods, and are quite willing to read labels and research the origins of their meals, whether it be prepared in a four-star vegan restaurant or picked off the shelf of a corner convenience mart.

Food and beverage manufacturers rely on their R&D and marketing departments to develop new product ideas that capture market share before the competition can catch up. These departments leverage information available in their business systems to help them analyze trends ranging from buying patterns to cost fluctuations. The trouble is, when R&D and marketing rely on business systems that exist in silos— as is often the case with today’s food and beverage manufacturers opportunities are missed, product development is too slow, and costs creep higher. But when a manufacturer understands that every part of the organization has a stake in the product innovation process, and ensures that all the parts are connected, the organization is better positioned to deliver successful, innovative products quickly.

This white paper discusses a number of considerations that food and beverage manufacturers should make when examining ways to accelerate product innovation. This paper also details how digital technology can be the enabler of this acceleration.

Introduction

No food and beverage (F&B) company can afford unscheduled downtime. F&B is an industry pressured by outside forces such as consumer tastes and commodity pricing. But what is within control are the operations that get product to consumers. One big way to optimize production is to slash downtime to deliver tens of thousands of dollars back to the bottom line. In this e-book we provide tips on harnessing IoT, data-driven enterprise asset management (EAM), and smart technologies to strike a careful balance between lean efficiency and maximized uptime.

For three generations Smarties candies have been a favorite among Halloween trick-or-treaters who love the pastel-colored wafers that are even good for some allergen-sensitive children. On Wednesday the Smarties Candy Co. celebrates its 70th anniversary at its manufacturing headquarters in Union, New Jersey.

The company, founded by 96-year-old patriarch, Edward Dee has a lot to celebrate. It is one of the few family-owned mass-production confectionery companies left in the United States, and it turns out more than 2 billion rolls of the candies every year.

The high-level issues facing food and beverage manufacturers today might feel like the same challenges the industry has been dealing with for years, but the context in which these challenges exist have changed dramatically. Consumer demand for greater product innovation and transparency, ever-increasing quality and compliance pressures, tighter profit margins, new channel opportunities, and a dynamic workforce are just some of the factors that are shifting market dynamics to the point where food and beverage manufacturers need to take a fresh approach to how they do business.

In some cases, technology is driving the change; in other cases, technology offers the solution. In this changing environment, successfully managing growth and profitability depend on how well food and beverage manufacturers can evolve while embracing modern technology.

How food and beverage companies can succeed in the microvertical space.

You can see it happening in supermarket aisles. Shoppers are moving their carts away from the big food brands and toward niche brands and specialized, fresher products.1 You can see it in the financials as well. The top US food and beverage companies have lost about $18 billion in market share since 2009, reports Fortune.

In this period of change, companies are differentiating themselves by focusing on specific niche, microvertical markets. By going niche, they can offer consumers unique products that appeal to highly specific consumer demand. But, developing a microvertical or niche business means taking on a range of new challenges. You must learn new skills, develop new and unique products, and rely on smaller production runs to produce higher margins.

You can only go big by going small.

For everything there is a season, as those in the Food and Beverage Industry are keenly aware. In parts of the world, harvest season is here; for others, it is spring planting. And, as 2018 coasts to year-end, it is also the season for summarizing achievements and setting new goals. Eager to capitalize on the growth momentum, F&B companies will soon be planning 2019 budgets and prioritizing the major initiatives for the coming year. With many game-changing innovations now available, companies should start early to strategize on the technology investments that will be key to seizing new opportunities.