Managing challenges in the food and beverage supply chain

Food for thought: The food and beverage industry contains an extraordinarily complicated web of processes and standards that companies must navigate daily. Today, that web has grown more complex thanks to a perfect storm of industry challenges, including global trade uncertainty, fluctuating ingredient prices, increasingly complex regulatory frameworks, more sophisticated and competitive markets, and a persistent labor shortage.

As the scope and severity of these industry challenges continue to rise, it’s becoming clear to food and beverage industry leaders that legacy solutions don’t have the capacity to overcome today’s challenges—or prepare for tomorrow’s. Instead, companies require next-generation, industry-specific, and complete solutions that enhance operational transparency, uncover hidden efficiencies, and minimize repetitive tasks so manufacturers, supply chain operators, and food distribution facilities can not only survive but thrive in volatile markets.

Macroeconomic volatility and global supply chain disruptions in food and beverage

The food and beverage industry increasingly relies on a network of suppliers around the world—the value of US agricultural imports reached a record $213 billion US in 2024. For example, one cup of coffee with milk and sugar requires three supply chains (coffee beans, dairy, sweetener), vetted providers, and in many cases, at least one journey through customs.

In today’s macroeconomic environment, where rapidly changing trade agreements and unpredictable economic swings are the new normal, companies are struggling to anticipate and respond to supply chain disruptions more than ever. And when their customers can no longer rely on on-time delivery, food and beverage producers and distributors can quickly lose their customers’ trust—and business.

Protecting margins with demand forecasting in the food and beverage industry

Forecasting consumer purchasing decisions is key for food and beverage companies to sustain and grow revenue. However, when consumers face sticker shock at the grocery store due to numerous macroeconomic factors, it is increasingly difficult for food and beverage companies to produce sufficient inventory while maintaining margins. Compounding the issue, staff have less time to tackle this challenge because they’re devoting countless hours to repetitive manual operations such as quality verification, order processing, and production oversight. When prices and stakes are high due to market volatility, employees need every efficiency they can get to enable businesses to stay competitive.

Without industry-specific technology to develop data-driven strategies, businesses risk spoilage losses, delivery failures, and diminished profitability—undermining both short and long-term success. Unlike other industries, missteps in food and beverage happen in full view of customers, and can put their health at risk.

Meeting food safety and regulatory compliance requirements at scale

Navigating food safety regulations is becoming increasingly challenging as government agencies and major retailers enforce stricter regulations. This requires more transparency and reporting from companies on how specific products are sourced and distributed. At the same time, talent shortages present evolving complexities when it comes to ensuring adherence and keeping operations running smoothly.

To remain compliant under these circumstances, companies need real-time information to identify, track, and trace the real-time location of ingredients and products throughout the entire supply chain. They need visibility into a product’s production, from raw material producers to transportation managers, manufacturing facilities, and grocery store shelves.

Solving food and beverage supply chain challenges with GenAI and industry-specific ERP

The Infor™ Industry Cloud Complete approach empowers food and beverage companies to transform industry hurdles into strategic advantages. Our industry-specific solutions help customers secure and maintain a competitive advantage when tackling today's macroeconomic challenges, preparing for future roadblocks, and staying ready for the unexpected.

Infor CloudSuite™ Food & Beverage provides the supply chain traceability, predictive tools, and regulatory assurance that food and beverage companies need so that when ingredient suppliers face border delays or shipping disruptions, users can spot problems early, find alternative sources quickly, and adjust production schedules to maintain consistent output with available materials. Infor’s financial planning and demand forecasting tools help food and beverage customers reconcile inventory levels and best-by dates with changing demand patterns, while scheduling tools built into the same connected platform let users adjust production plans accordingly to protect their margins.

AI-powered analytics and supply chain traceability for smarter decisions

Infor Velocity Suite's advanced technologies, including generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and process mining, are purpose-built for food and beverage businesses moving through this volatile time, delivering targeted solutions that address the sector's most pressing challenges. Process mining reveals critical insights about supply chain operations, including cycle time changes and cost spikes from tariff adjustments or policy updates, helping you quickly identify outliers such as purchase orders with unexpected charges or delivery delays, and act on them. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics uncover patterns in customer ordering behaviors, catch ordering anomalies, and identify which products and customers generate positive or negative profit impacts as ingredient costs fluctuate with market conditions.

By leveraging Velocity Suite’s AI and robotic process automation (RPA) technology, customers can automatically screen ingredient suppliers against governmental exclusion lists. As regulatory landscapes and suppliers shift, customers can rest assured they are operating in accordance with the latest guidelines. By automating workstreams such as examining financial reports and consolidating discrepancies, shrinking teams are also able to do more with fewer resources.

How Infor transforms the food and beverage supply chain from end to end

With Infor's Industry Cloud Complete, industry challenges become opportunities. With a comprehensive suite of tools, food and beverage businesses can overcome industry-wide obstacles and consistently provide customers with high-quality products delivered on time. With Infor, food and beverage customers can not only start ahead of today’s challenges, but get ahead of tomorrow’s, and stay ahead for years to come.

Discover how Infor makes possible happen for food and beverage customers here.