FOOD AND BEVERAGES

Competitive advantage
The corporation is only as good as its formulations in the food and beverage (F&B) market. While
this has been true for years, what used to be a winning formula technique no longer holds up.
Companies in the food and beverage industry are under more pressure now than they were just a
few years ago. Higher commodity costs, retailer price pressure, and tougher regulations define the
current economy.

Customers are also playing a role, as they seek higher nutritional value and the usage of products
that they believe are safer and more environmentally friendly. Least-cost formulation, a unique
process that allows F&B enterprises to respond better to both severe and rapidly changing
constraints, has become the new standard of excellence. F&B enterprises can better manage their
operating margins by boosting sales and reducing costs thanks to the improved flexibility provided
by least-cost formulation.

 A successful response to the corporate business will almost always include more effective
management of operational constraints, facilitated in part by a better formulation approach.

 Provide items that are higher in nutritional value and contain fewer allergies. F&B companies
must reformulate many of their goods to boost nutritional value or eliminate unwanted
substances as consumers place a greater emphasis on quality, including caloric content and
allergies such as wheat gluten. Formulating this while keeping existing product qualities such
as flavor and pricing might be difficult.
 Reducing expenditures as much as possible. With the rising prices of food commodities,
production, and distribution, Retailers, F&B companies, and delivery costs are all putting
downward pressure on pricing can use formulation to increase efficiency and save expenses
 Decrease the negative impact on the environment. More intelligent formulation can help
meet the rising emphasis on food safety as well as the requirement to adhere to
environmental regulations such as minimizing water usage and disposal.

Infor offers a unique approach to least-cost formulation

Infor has developed a different way to assisting food and beverage firms in developing a formulation
strategy that will help them identify their goods and achieve market share. The new approach builds
on Infor's 30 years of support for the food and beverage industry, including current support for 20 of
the world's leading food and beverage corporations.

Infor has built a holistic approach to F&B formulation by combining features from the Infor Optiv and
Infor Advanced Planning products. The Infor least-cost formulation technique assists food and
beverage firms in better understanding their operational restrictions, analyzing them, and
automatically creating a least-cost formula that also fits all other product needs.

F&B organizations utilize Infor Optiv to establish product specifications based on customer needs in
Infor's least-cost formulation approach. They pass the requirement to Infor Planning, which
generates the optimal formula. The formula data is transmitted back to the PLM solution, which
generates labels and other packaging information. The information is then sent to the manufacturing
enterprise resource planning solution.

F&B enterprises can use Infor's least-cost formulation capabilities to:

 Streamline production planning procedures. They can simulate and model product
formulations to guarantee that final product attributes fit company goals and standards, as
well as control product specifications properly.
 Make the supply chain management process more efficient. They may assess constraints
thoroughly, model and compare multiple tactics and formulations, and quantify the
implications of different choice possibilities using specifically built constraint-based
algorithms.

In today's economic climate, it's critical for food and beverage firms to increase their response to the
demands of consumers, retailers, government regulators, shareholders, and suppliers. Infor believes
there is a compelling rationale for food and beverage firms to employ a low-cost formulation
strategy that optimizes the process of developing new formulas as well as the quality of each
formula.

hence these are the pointers that helps the food and beverages industry to gain competitive
advantage.