Today’s food industry faces supply uncertainties, increased customer demands, and ongoing government regulation. Food manufacturers, therefore, require sector-specific business systems that can quickly adapt to significant challenges.

Major trends in the food and beverage industry

· Better food safety and animal well-being: Producers need to ensure control over their entire process, including suppliers. This includes maintaining transparency over the source and ingredients of animal feed, having a deep understanding of animal welfare and enforcing strict quality standards right up to when the finished product is in stores.

· Disruptions in the value chain: A strong value chain is crucial – and so is the creation of a back-up plan, including potential alternative suppliers. This helps mitigate risks, whether tied to pandemics, animal welfare, or changes in demand.

· New regulations: Business systems are significantly influenced by new regulations and legal requirements, which means that they should be continually updated to ensure compliance.

· Changes in consumer behaviour: Consumer behaviours are increasingly influenced by factors such as taste, health, convenience and environmental concern. Therefore, producers require an ERP platform which enables them to adapt their production lines and products swiftly, access external data, anticipate trends, and enhance product development efficiently.

Strategic Responses

To effectively manage these changes, food businesses should adopt a structured approach:

• Establish relationships with alternative suppliers to ensure uninterrupted supply.
• Maintain alternative Bills of Materials (BOMs) and production routes, clearly identifying associated costs for quick decision-making.
• Reduce setup times to swiftly adjust production lines to new demands.
• Clearly understand customer profitability to prioritise opportunities during disruptions.
• Use predictive analytics and generative AI to reduce waste and make informed decisions based on detailed data analysis.
• Precisely track distribution costs—by customer, supplier, product, country, and volume—to support informed decisions.
• Proactively identify shifts in consumer behaviour to enable rapid introduction of new flavours, ingredients, and ready-to-eat meals.

Successfully applying these strategies requires specialised industry solutions. And that's precisely what Infor CloudSuite offers.

"Food and beverage producers need business systems and IT solutions that can handle rapid changes or disruptions in the value chain, as we've witnessed in recent years," says Per Christian Øen, Business Solution Director at Columbus.

"This also includes growing transparency demands from regulators and changing consumer trends. These rapid changes require robust enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.”

Traditional, on-premises, solutions are no longer effective for managing today's complex food and beverage industry, explains Per Christian Øen.

He emphasises the need for sector-specific solutions that continuously update in the cloud to keep ahead of the demands of all stakeholders. Note: To explore food manufacturing trends and challenges further, we’ve created a podcast together with industry experts, where we share practical solutions and real-life examples to help food businesses respond effectively and stay ahead.

Dedicated industry solution for food

Infor provides market-leading business systems for a number of key industries and within each has developed solutions tailored to micro-verticals.

"For example, in food production, there are micro-verticals for meat, dairy, and bakery, among others," says Per Christian Øen.

Infor continues to invest annually in research and development for its ERP system, refining it to the specific needs of micro-verticals. As a result, Infor's industry solutions offer extensive functionality, customised for each vertical. In contrast, many competitors rely on partner networks to handle this task.

Let's take the dairy industry as an example. It has distinct requirements, such as the shelf life for fresh products or the aging period for specific cheese varieties. Infor recognises these needs, so this functionality is integrated into the solution from the outset, turning it into a configuration task rather than a solution development process during implementation.

These feature-rich industry functionalities significantly reduce the implementation time of the ERP system compared to most competitors. A strong example of this is our work with Smaken av Grimstad, a customer who accelerated their transition to the cloud in preparation for harvest and successfully went live within just eight weeks.

Infor has developed a 60-30-10 methodology, where 60% of the solution is delivered 'out-of-the-box,' 30% involves configurations tailored to the industry and micro-vertical, and the remaining 10% of the ERP implementation is dedicated to development and integrations specific to each business.

"One part of the secret behind Infor's cloud platform is Infor OS. It facilitates development and customisation with minimal coding requirements," says Per Christian Øen at Columbus.

Infor's cloud platform also offers the flexibility to easily incorporate various solutions and add-ons, such as integration with apps and mobile devices. The system is also designed to leverage advanced analytics, predictive maintenance, and make predictions about market developments and demand in selected market segments.

Lower total cost of ownership

In recent years, businesses , have increasingly focused on avoiding long, resource-intensive, and often risky IT projects and implementations. Their goal instead is to make swift progress and enjoy early rewards from their chosen systems.

While the trend of moving ERP systems to the cloud has continued and strengthened, there are significant differences among the various systems in the market in terms of how far they have progressed in becoming a genuine, full-fledged, multi-tenant cloud platform.

Multi-tenant means that a single software solution and its surrounding infrastructure serves multiple customers. This means that customers share the software and database, but

each customer's data is isolated and invisible to other customers using the same software and database. The significant advantage is that integration with other systems is more straightforward, and the total cost of ownership is lower compared to competitors.

"Infor CloudSuite is somewhat of a hidden gem. Right now, Infor is several years ahead of competitors when it comes to multi-tenant cloud solutions. On the path to developing a true cloud platform, Infor has focused on developing integration interfaces and APIs with the best and most widely used IT solutions in the food industry," says Per Christian Øen.

He emphasises that the ready-made APIs also contribute to making implementation easier and faster.

"Integration with solutions from other vendors is often a significant and challenging task in many ERP projects, but with Infor CloudSuite, most integrations are simplified with the pre-built APIs."

It is widely acknowledged that a cloud-based ERP solution offers numerous advantages over traditional on-premises ERP systems, and benefits from continuous updates, eliminating the need for large and costly upgrade projects. Infor CloudSuite receives monthly updates, covering everything from solution optimisation to the development of new functionality to support best practices in the industry and address emerging market trends.

Successful ERP project with Norsk Kylling (Norwegian Chicken)

Norsk Kylling’s mission is to create the world's best food value chain. The business includes 133 farmers who produce eggs, hatching hens, and broiler chickens. In a year, Norsk Kylling delivers approximately 81 million meals to Norwegian consumers under the Solvinge brand.

"The best possible animal welfare and responsibility throughout the value chain are central to our strategy," says the company’s IT Manager, Torfinn Utne.

When Norsk Kylling had to choose a new ERP solution, they emphasized a short implementation time, minimal customizations, and solid support for the industry's specific needs. That's why they chose Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage. The solution comes with pre-configured settings tailored to the food industry.

"To succeed, we are entirely dependent on smart systems, as well as accessible and accurate management information that we obtain from the digital platform that seamlessly collects it and structures," says Utne.

The industry-specific solution for the food industry ensures control, quality, and efficiency throughout the entire value chain.

"CloudSuite Food & Beverage gives us full control throughout our complex value chain," Utne explains. "We have around 150 suppliers from three different categories: farms that provide us with either eggs, hatching hens, or broiler chickens. The business system covers both hatching and slaughter, as well as the purchase and sale of eggs and chickens. Now we have full control and can more quickly document and trace transactions from field to table." Read more about our collaboration with Norsk Kylling here.

Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or would like to speak with one of our experts.