The increasing complications of inventory management

Given the limited shelf life of food products, inventory management has come up to be one of the current issues in the food industry. The perishability factor is responsible for fact that Food and Beverage inventory is highly susceptible to foodborne pathogens and more, if not stored hygienically. This has prompted manufacturers to adopt new software solutions to alleviate these issues, given that the presence of foodborne bacteria may have a disastrous impact on the company’s reputation. 

The F&B space is also highly machine-controlled, given its expanding growth pace, and is likely to continue adopting advanced technology to keep up with consumer trends and latest innovations. The demand for enhanced inventory management software in food processing, canning goods, and packaging products forms a vital part of the challenges of food and beverage market, and numerous companies are making efforts to help the F&B sector deal with the crisis. 

The pervasive presence of eCommerce

An online presence is one of the major challenges of food and beverage industry, considering that consumers are more tech-savvy and socially informed, thanks to the Internet. While core industries, like appliances, electronics, textiles, and other domestic products have already established their presence in the commerce domain, this sector has been relatively slow on the upkeep.

Of late though, wholesalers and retail companies have already begun to invest in grocery e-commerce, however, it is important that most manufacturers have a presence on the World Wide Web, in order to tackle what seems to be one of the most crucial challenges of food and beverage industry. Citing an instance of the same, Reliance Industries’ retail arm, Reliance Retail Ltd., has made it to the headlines for planning to test its food and grocery app prior to the venture’s commercial launch.

Traceable to origin (the Connected Enterprise)

Consumers are also increasingly concerned about the provenance of their food, manifesting as higher demand for information about where their ingredients come from. This is a key requirement to achieve the farm to table level of traceability i.e. from the originating supplier to the end consumer tracking.

At one end of this spectrum are hyper-local supply chains: going back to our roots and using ingredients grown in the same country, county, or even neighbourhood. The appeal here is reduced air miles, and a general sense of participation in a greener route from field to fork.

At the other end of the spectrum are technological solutions like effective supply chain tracking, including IoT solutions, whose use allows precision-tracking of every ingredient in a supply chain. This is a way for established global supply chains to keep up with the demands of increasingly discerning consumers.