Overview of the Food Industry

In the recent years, the food industry is witnessing a moderate growth due to which prominent food companies are planning to restructure and align their activities to lower costs and enhance profits. With altering preferences of the customers, major food suppliers are facing hardships to ensure safety and quality in the products offered. To retain the quality and ensure consistency in the product offerings, global food producers are entering into mergers and acquisitions to gain prominent market share, improve their product lines, and strengthen their position in the market. The industry is also expected to witness additional growth from the overseas market through exports.

Here are some of the factors that may influence the growth of the food industry.

• Slow product innovation cycles: The food industry is greatly influenced by innovations to market new products with the emerging customer trends. So, it becomes essential for players to offer relevant products through R&D, and market those products through innovative labeling and packaging techniques.
• The anti-sugar movement: Recently, organizations like WHO and FDA are countering against high sugar intake. With the growing compliance requirements, prominent food manufacturers are facing challenges to curtail the addition of artificial sweeteners and other ingredients in their product offerings.

The Business Challenge

The client, a prominent food supplier with offices spread globally, wanted to conduct a basic spend analysis to gain better insights into the spending patterns. Through industry best practices, the client wanted to identify the potential risks involved in the food suppliers space in terms of the savings leak and purchasing overlaps. Moreover, the client wanted to compare the spend with that of the industry peers. In the food suppliers space, the primary concern of the client was to address the questions pertaining to spend visibility, compliance, and control.

To analyze the historical spend and gain a competitive edge over the competitors, the procurement experts at SpendEdge carried out extensive research comprising interviews and discussions with prominent stakeholders in the food suppliers space. To eradicate the roadblocks to spend management, the procurement experts at SpendEdge also compiled information across reliable sources including trade shows, newsletters, and industry forums in the food suppliers space.

The solution offered by SpendEdge helped the client in the food suppliers space, gather and consolidate the spend data into a central database. The client was able to avoid any disruptions in the supply chain and create better supplier management. The solution also helped the client standardize the spend data to determine where the money is spent in terms of direct and indirect spend.

Fundamental questions answered in this spend analysis solution include:

The Results

During the course of the engagement, the solution promised effective ways for the client to identify savings opportunities. The engagement further advised optimal ways to reduce the number of suppliers per category. Moreover, the client was able to understand the trends and leverage supplier data to gain an understanding of the competitive pricing. The spend analysis solution also helped the client perform inventory management and accordingly plan the budget.

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