Inside BENEO’s new pulse plant: pioneering sustainable protein from faba beans
Aleksandra Malhotra, Director, Kladana India
The food and beverage industry is evolving fast. Consumer demand for healthier and eco-friendly products is rising, making inventory management more complex. Businesses must juggle ingredients with different shelf lives, manage fluctuating demand, and avoid waste — all while maintaining quality and fast delivery.
The global food and beverage market is projected to reach USD 7.46 trillion by 2027, growing at 5.9 per cent annually, according to IndustryARC. With competition increasing, businesses need smart tools to stay ahead. This is where ERP automation steps in, simplifying operations and ensuring real-time data is always available. Instead of drowning in spreadsheets and manual tracking, companies can focus on growth, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
How ERP Transforms Food & Beverage Operations
1. Smarter Inventory Management
Managing stock in spreadsheets or a copybook is exhausting and error-prone, especially when dealing with perishable goods. Imagine a dairy company struggling with expired products due to inaccurate stock tracking. An ERP system solves this by tracking expiration dates and reducing waste, providing real-time stock insights, and automating reordering to avoid shortages or overstocking.
A bakery, for instance, can set up automatic alerts when flour or yeast stocks run low, ensuring production never halts due to missing ingredients.
2. Simplified Production Planning
Food businesses process orders from multiple sources — retail stores, wholesalers, and e-commerce. Without automation, managing them can be chaotic. An ERP system merges all orders into one dashboard, updates stock levels automatically, generates invoices, tracks payments, and sends confirmations.
Consider a frozen food supplier handling orders from supermarkets and restaurants. With ERP, they can see all incoming requests in one place, preventing missed shipments and ensuring timely delivery.
3. Production Traceability and Quality Control
Food safety regulations are strict, and compliance is non-negotiable. A restaurant supplier, for example, must ensure fresh ingredients meet health standards. ERP helps by tracking batch IDs and expiry dates, storing quality control records, ensuring compliance with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and other regulations.
With real-time reporting, businesses can analyze costs, monitor production quality, and make informed decisions with confidence.
4. Seamless Integration & Scalability
Modern ERP systems integrate smoothly with other business tools like Shopify, accounting software, and supply chain management platforms. As businesses grow, ERP systems adapt by supporting new sales channels, managing expanding production lines and gandling increased order volumes without disruption
Take an organic juice brand expanding from local sales to national distribution — an ERP system ensures smooth scaling without logistical nightmares.
5. Boosting Efficiency & Cutting Costs
Manual processes slow businesses down and lead to costly mistakes. A small catering business spending hours tracking invoices and stock manually could save time with ERP automation, which eliminates repetitive tasks, speeds up order processing, and reduces human errors.
From barcode scanning to real-time analytics, ERP saves time and money, allowing businesses to focus on growth instead of fixing errors.
Why ERP Matters
ERP automation isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a necessity. It simplifies complex operations, provides real-time insights, and ensures compliance. Businesses that adopt ERP stay ahead, delivering quality products efficiently.For food and beverage companies looking to scale, improve efficiency, and maintain compliance, ERP is the key to long-term success. If your business hasn’t embraced ERP yet, now is the time to make the switch and future-proof your operations.