Shortlist UK’s Best Food and Beverage ERP Software

Use our finder tool to shortlist Food and Beverage ERP Software for your recipe, inventory & traceability needs in manufacturing & distribution.

What Is Food and Beverage ERP?

Food and Beverage ERP Software is a specialised system designed to cater to the specific manufacturing, management, and distribution needs of companies in the food and beverage industry.

It can slash finished goods inventory by up to 25%, reduce time spent picking and packing by 10%, and increase delivery times by 14%.

A food and beverage ERP consolidates all food production and distribution information in one system. This improves collaboration and efficiency throughout the entire manufacturing and distribution processes, from recipe and inventory management to quality control and sales.

On top of standard modules like accounting and inventory management, Food and Beverage ERP Software provides unique modules like recipe management, food quality control, allergen management, and lot traceability.

Using these food-specific modules, manufacturers can:

• Gain end-to-end product, batch, and lot traceability to facilitate recalls
• Track allergen and nutritional information
• Calculate weight/catch weight
• Reduce waste with First-Expired First-Out (FEFO) distribution and expiration date management
• Schedule crop and livestock yields for maximum optimisation of produce
• Automate and schedule food safety testing
• Balance consumer demand with production date, shelf life, and holding costs
• Avoid stockouts and overstocking with demand forecasting

Implementing Food and Beverage ERP Software helps diversify supply chains, target new food habits, and tighten existing manufacturing and distribution processes. This ensures a higher likelihood of survival for companies in the food and beverage industry.

Although food and beverage manufacturing generates £29 billion annually for the UK economy, investment growth has fallen by 30%. To combat climate change, recalls, labour shortages, and waste, food manufacturers need to be forward-thinking by adopting technologies such as food and beverage ERPs.

6 Best Food and Beverage ERP Software Solutions

Budget and ROI Considerations When Purchasing Food and Beverage ERP Software

The cost of implementing Food and Beverage ERP Software ranges from £15,000 to £500,000. This drastic variation in cost comes down to the number of users, the modules required, the size of the organisation, and the vendor.

As with any software purchase, there are factors to consider when budgeting. These factors play a key role in the total costs, such as:

• Implementation fees: Roughly account for 30% of the total cost, averaging £25,000.
• Hosting: If required, vendors can charge up to £500 per month for hosting.
• Software licences: Ranges from £10 to £100 per user per month, with the total going up the more users a system has.
• Training and change management: Depending on scope, staff training can account for £10,000 of the initial costs.
• Yearly maintenance and support: Some vendors include this in the total price, while prices range from 10 to 20% of the implementation cost.

In general, companies that successfully implement an ERP system see a return on their investment within the first 2.5 years. For companies in the food and beverage industry, ROI will be in the form of:

• Reducing handling costs and waste
• Increasing capacity by automating manual processes like batch tracking and inventory management
• Reducing time and labour spent on audit and reporting with automated traceability and compliance tracking
• Less rush orders with demand forecasting

ERP Modules For Food Manufacturing and Distribution Stages

1. Raw Material Sourcing & Storing

• Procurement Management: Automate contract tracking, supplier management, and purchase orders.
• Supplier Management: Communicate with suppliers and track certificates, regulatory documents, and material quality.
• Product Traceability: Automate the recording of material origins and batch details for compliance.
• Inventory Management: Store and track batch numbers, stock levels, and expiry dates as raw materials arrive.
• Warehouse Management System (WMS): Manage product locations, stock rotation for FEFO, and temperature control.
• Quality Control/Inspection: Track the quality of accepted raw materials, including those that have been rejected.

2. Pre-Process Planning

• Planning and Scheduling: Allocate resources and raw materials ready for processing.
• Batch Management: Manage batches and ingredients for lot traceability and compliance.
• Equipment Maintenance Scheduling: Schedule maintenance to ensure equipment is ready for processing and runs.

3. Mixing and Formulation

• Recipe Management: Automate ingredient ratios, revisions, and production costs for each batch.
• Batch Management: Automate batch creation, mixing sequences, and the use of raw materials and ingredients, allocating unique identifiers.
• Quality Control: Monitor the consistency of ingredients to ensure compliance with product specifications.

4. Processing

• Process Monitoring: Automate alerts and notifications for cooking times and temperatures.
• Quality Assurance: Use real-time data input to ensure compliance with safety standards (HACCP, FSA).
• Traceability: Record processing stages for each batch number.

5. Packaging

• Packaging Management: Source and track packaging materials, quantity, and labels.
• Label Tagging: Ensure information regarding ingredients and nutritional data align with the correct batch.
• Batch and Lot Tracking: Assign packing details with batch numbers for recall readiness.

6. Finished Good Storage

• Finished Goods Inventory: Input and monitor stock levels with expiry dates and storage conditions.
• Warehouse Management System: Track and manage locations, storage temperatures, and shipping readiness.
• Shelf Life Management: Automate alerts for when products are near expiring and trigger price alterations.

7. Delivery and Distribution

• Order Management: Track and process customer orders, invoices, and delivery schedules.
• Transportation and Logistics: Plan and optimise delivery routes while maintaining shipping conditions like temperature.
• Sales and CRM: Manage customer data, SLAs, and post-sale customer service.

8. Returns

• Returns Management: Record and track customer returns while automating refunds or replacements.
• Reverse Logistics: Coordinate transportation for collecting and returning finished goods.
• Inventory Management: Update stock levels when returned goods are received (if they’re undamaged and non-perishable).
• Quality Control: Inspect and automate corrective actions for returned finished goods.

4 Leading Benefits of ERP For Food and Beverage Manufacturers

1. Scalability of Production & Distribution

An ERP system is a single end-to-end platform that centralises all business processes from payroll and HR to order and inventory. Unlike applications such as Microsoft Office, QuickBooks, and Excel Spreadsheets – which can stunt growth opportunities for SMBs, the scalable possibilities of food & beverage ERP Software seem limitless.

2. Management of a Diverse Supply Chain

Diversifying your supply chain may seem complex, considering the amount of information and documents required. However, an ERP system is designed for this type of complexity. It provides food and beverage manufacturers with:

• Automation: Schedule the placement of orders based on thresholds such as forecasted demand and optimal yield time.
• Quick order placement: Having access to order demand forecasts and real-time warehouse stock levels (using IoT sensors), procurement managers can quickly and easily order raw materials on demand.
• Sustainable calculations: With AI-powered ERP solutions, you can easily understand if one supplier is better than another in terms of sustainability scores and make quicker decisions based on automated recommendations.

Our expert’s view…

“By diversifying suppliers, fostering strong relationships, automating processes, and securing long-term procurement contracts, companies can build resilience and ensure stability in their manufacturing and distribution processes. Proactive and strategic approaches are essential to navigating these complexities and sustaining growth in an ever-changing market.”

Paul Vera, Plant Manager at Mad Mexican

3. Meeting Changing Food Habits & Entering New Markets

An opportune way to combat the rising costs of raw materials is to expand and enter into new markets. Through industry-specific ERP modules such as Recipe and Formula Management, manufacturers can tweak recipes and introduce new ingredients to do just that.

Addressing new food habits and allergens includes producing products that are vegan-friendly, dairy-free, gluten-free, preservative-free, and generally more health-conscious.

4. Reduce Wastage, Recalls & Spoiled Goods

This is where an enterprise resource planning system shines. With applications for inventory, warehouse, and traceability management, food and beverage manufacturers can avoid huge losses.

Through on-demand forecasting and real-time inventory management, overstocking and understocking issues are addressed. While with proper expiration date management and on-demand labelling systems (as well as FEFO distribution practices), the risk of spoiled goods is dramatically reduced.

Real-World Examples of Successful Food and Beverage ERP Deployment

Case Study #1: Undercover Snacks

The New Jersey-based company needed an ERP to support its rapid growth. Other key reasons included gaining better control over inventory, financial planning, and the production process. They chose to transition from QuickBooks and implement Oracle NetSuite. By doing so, they:

• Automated reconciliations, forecasting, and financial reporting that reduced error rates
• Improved decision-making through visibility by connecting customer, supplier, producer, and warehouse data
• Scaled into 10,000 stores globally and into new channels like United Airlines

Case Study #2: Heaven Hill Distilleries

A Kentucky-based producer of distilled spirits that deployed IFS integrated ERP systems in 2003. The reasons for this implementation were to enhance data accessibility and improve key decision-making. This resulted in:

• Reduced finished goods inventory
• Improved agility in a changing market
• Shortened lead times with faster order fulfillment
• Faster decision-making with real-time data insights

Case Study #3: KLN Family Brands

KLN, a manufacturer of human and pet food products, implemented IFS Food and Beverage ERP to meet the surging customer demand. They required greater supply chain and MRP visibility after outgrowing their current ERP solution. KLN’s ROI looked like this:

• Reduced finished goods inventory by 25% with enhance forecasting capabilities
• Cut raw materials inventory by $2 million within six months
• Reduced spending on maintenance and additional applications by condensing and integrating operational data

3 Leading Challenges Facing the Food and Beverage Industry

1. Rising Costs of Raw Materials For Manufacturing

In the year leading up to March 2024, food production costs increased by 9.2%, with a further 2.1% increase expected by 2025. The reasons behind this increase include inflation, soaring energy costs, and the rising cost of raw materials.

This increase in raw material costs is a combination of factors:

• Climate change
• Material shortage
• Labour shortage
• Geopolitical tensions
• Transportation / Production delays and halts

Coupled with soaring energy costs for running production machinery and equipment, profit margins for food and beverage manufacturers continue to shrink.

2. Ensuring Food Safety Standards & Compliance

From procurement and manufacturing of raw materials to labelling and inventory management, processes impacting safety, transparency, and traceability should be of the highest standard. Failure to do so can result in revenue and brand-crippling consequences, such as enforced product recalls.

Product recalls can single-handedly put produce manufacturers out of business. Studies have put the cost of food recalls between $1 million and $10 million in direct costs.

Beyond finances, manufacturers risk damaging brand reputations that have taken decades to build and losing the trust of a loyal consumer base.

Food and beverage sectors are heavily regulated in terms of safety, compliance, and transparency. Businesses need to obtain food safety certifications (such as HACCP, GMP+, FSSC 22000, and BRCGS) to demonstrate compliance with the highest safety standards. There are also food safety checklists to follow, like the one provided by the UK’s Food Standards Agency.

3. Meeting Sustainability Expectations

The demand for sustainable practices in food and beverage production is at an all-time high. Sustainability in food production and manufacturing has been at the forefront of Net Zero targets among the UN, Climate Action 100+ investors, and the Paris Climate Agreement.

In 2015, the food and beverage industry alone accounted for 34% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (as a result of the ‘food system’ supply chain that includes agriculture, transport, fuel production, waste management, industrial packaging, farming, and livestock production).

In the UK, the food and drink sector is responsible for 22% (158 million tonnes) of its carbon footprint.

Expectations for companies to meet set sustainability targets going forward include:

• Sourcing raw materials locally
• Reducing waste
• Using renewable energy sources for transportation and manufacturing (such as electric vehicles and HGVs)
• Using recycled packaging
• Procure lower-carbon materials/ingredients
• Improving manufacturing energy consumption (sustainable refrigerants, renewable electricity, etc.)

Food and Beverage ERP Software FAQs

What Food and Beverage Operations Benefit Most From Implementing ERP?

Industry-specific ERP Software is aimed at various operations within the food and drink sectors, such as:

• Dairy
• Meat, poultry, and fish
• Beverages
• Bakery and confectionery
• Fresh produce
• Farming and agriculture
• Frozen and prepared foods
• Canned goods
• Ingredients (such as spices)

How Long Does ERP Implementation Take For Food and Beverage Operations?

ERP implementation time varies based on the scope of the project, but the average timeline ranges between 6 and 18 months. Implementation should be considered an ongoing process, not static. It’s important to have a detailed implementation plan in place to avoid implementation failure. Generally, food manufacturers and distributors have a good implementation success rate of 67%.