Food Industry Executive

The Unglamorous Supply Chain Advice Growing Food Brands Need to Hear: Simplify

Growing food brands often mistake complexity for progress. Here's why simplifying your supply chain (SKUs, packaging, and ...
Food Industry ExecutiveOpinion

Recall Readiness: The Plan Most Processors Haven’t Tested

The FDA requires a recall plan but not a test of it. With recalls cascading across dozens of brands, the untested plan is ...
Food Industry Executive

Food Exec Brief: 95% of Manufacturers Can’t Find the Workers, Kraft Heinz Drops the Split, and 17 States Challenge California’s Plastics Law

Welcome to this week’s Food Exec Brief, your strategic intelligence roundup for food and beverage manufacturing leaders. This ...
Food Industry Executive

Food and Beverage Is the Only Sector Losing Ground on Downtime

Every manufacturing sector cut downtime hours except one. Food and beverage costs doubled to over $10M a plant. Why the ...
foodindustryexecutive

Q2 2026 Food Industry M&A Roundup: Flavor, Ingredients, and Distribution Got Very Expensive

Two deals announced in Q2 could together redraw the global flavor and specialty ingredients map: McCormick’s $44.8 billion combination with Unilever Foods and Ingredion’s $5.0 billion acquisition of ...
foodindustryexecutive

Food Exec Brief: Prices Accelerate, Hormuz Hits 100 Days, and Ingredion Closes

Welcome to this week’s Food Exec Brief, your strategic intelligence roundup for food and beverage manufacturing leaders. This week, we’re covering: Consumer goods prices hit their highest ...
foodindustryexecutive

Beyond Labor: What High-Velocity Warehousing Really Means for Food Manufacturers

High-velocity warehousing is about adaptability, not just throughput. Modern food operations must handle rising SKU counts, smaller/more frequent orders, and demand volatility without compromising ...
foodindustryexecutive

63% of Companies Say Their Supply Chain Works. 73% Are Losing Revenue Anyway.

A 2026 survey of 301 supply chain executives found that 73% had lost revenue due to supply chain issues. More than six in 10 of those respondents described their chain as operating as designed.
Food Industry Executive

Food Exec Brief: USMCA Enters Annual Reviews, Big Egg Settles, and AI Governance Gets Urgent

USMCA non-renewal, a DOJ egg price settlement, a new FSIS Salmonella pilot for poultry, California's sell-by label ban, and what a 60% manufacturing breach rate means for food companies.
foodindustryexecutive

AI Cost Forecasting: Turning Input-Cost Volatility Into a Margin Lever

Forecasts move faster than budgets. The World Bank’s 2026 commodity outlook swung 25% in three months, so betting a margin on any single forecast is the true exposure. AI’s documented forecasting ...
foodindustryexecutive

A Quarter of Food Plant Workers Retire by 2030. Then What?

In 2000, 14% of U.S. manufacturing employment was at firms where at least a quarter of workers were over 55. By 2022, that share had climbed to over 40%, according to U.S. Census Bureau analysis ...
foodindustryexecutive

Where Agentic AI Earns a Seat on the Plant Floor

There’s a real difference between AI that warns you a pump is about to fail and AI that orders the part, books the technician, and reschedules the line around the repair. The first hands you a ...