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The Independent
5 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Food and beverage companies shift to future-ready operations
How F&B companies can navigate rising input costs, shifting consumer demands, tightening regulations and increasing supply chain complexity. Global food commodity prices are still about a third higher than pre-Covid levels, according to the UN FAO Food Price Index. With significantly higher prices impacting margins, F&B companies need strategies to optimise costs by improving operational efficiency. Yet just 16 per cent of food and beverage processors expect to redesign or consolidate their plants in 2025. In this environment, operational efficiency is no longer about fine-tuning legacy systems; it requires reimagining performance through a more integrated lens. By evolving traditional lean, agile and six sigma (LASSi) methodologies into a future-ready strategy – one augmented by data, technology and adaptability – F&B companies can build more resilient, responsive, and sustainable operations. This approach gives F&B companies a powerful framework to drive efficiency, adaptability and quality. Lean boosts process efficiency, agile enables faster response to market shifts and six sigma reduces variability through data. – shifting operations from reactive to proactive. Lean foundations, digital liftoff Operational makeovers that endure always start lean. Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company cut the number of plants it runs by 30 per cent (from 80 to 56) between 2008 and 2021, yet boosted production lines per site by 44 per cent and trimmed distribution centres and warehouses by two-thirds, all while preserving overall capacity. Meanwhile, Nestlé's Continuous Excellence programme couples lean methodologies with total productive maintenance (TPM). Since Nestlé launched the programme in 2008, it has delivered 5 to 6 per cent organic growth every year and realises roughly $1.7 billion in annual savings. This demonstrates how LASSi boosts efficiency, capacity and growth – setting the stage for tech-driven gains. Building on that lean base, efficiency now means redesigning work by integrating digital technologies with physical processes and materials. Unilever shows the leap: by pairing AI and robotics with 3D printing, it fine-tunes portion-controlled ice-cream packs – dosing each unit at the exact weight, volume and temperature consumers expect while keeping lines agile for shifting demand. Looking to gain better return on investment (ROI) on promotions and compete with private labels, Kraft Heinz has taken an approach that marries tech investments with agile methodologies to develop its in-house capabilities in tandem with vendor partnerships. By integrating agile methodologies with tech, Kraft Heinz has shrunk its innovation timeline from three years to six months and improved promo ROI by 10 per cent using AI to better identify the right product mix for a region or retail location. These examples show the importance of combining structural shifts – plant consolidation, supply chain reconfiguration – with tech adoption, such as AI, robotics or 3D printing. Applying this dual layer is what moves the dial. Address implementation challenges These early wins set the stage for the toughest hurdle: implementation. Embedding a culture of accountability and continuous improvement helps break down resistance to change, while upskilling employees through continuous training in evolving LASSi principles eases labour market pressures and keeps frontline talent aligned. Companies such as Starbucks, JBS6 and Mondelez are investing in education programmes that build future-ready skills – helping close the digital readiness gap while boosting employee retention. At Starbucks, for example, 75 per cent of participants show career growth after graduation. Keeping training in sync with emerging methods and tech ensures skills keep pace. Long-term education partnerships close the readiness gap, and tomorrow's winners will be those who cultivate talent as boldly as they deploy smart tools New ideas and technologies driving operational efficiencies While LASSi methodologies remain a strong foundation for efficiency in the F&B sector, emerging technologies are reshaping what's possible. Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing – powered by IoT, AI and machine learning – are enabling smart factories with real-time decision-making, predictive maintenance and greater automation. Digital twins offer a way to simulate and optimise processes before implementation. Meanwhile, digital tools are driving sustainable manufacturing through circular economy models, renewable energy use and eco-friendly materials. Greater use of big data and analytics is enhancing supply chain visibility, demand forecasting and efficiency, while blockchain integration is boosting transparency and trust across operations. As companies evolve their performance strategies, many are also blending core methodologies with complementary ones – such as total productive maintenance (TPM), theory of constraints (ToC) and sociotechnical systems (STS) – to address equipment reliability, process bottlenecks and the human-tech interface. Strategic frameworks such as Hoshin Kanri and innovation tools such as design thinking further enrich this mix. The result is a multi-lens approach that strengthens not just efficiency, but resilience and adaptability too. F&B pressures vary plant by plant, yet the winning playbook is the same: fuse foundational operational-excellence disciplines with smart tech and human-centric design. The blend yields quick wins – higher overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), lower waste, faster changeovers – while fortifying operations against regulation and demand swings. Emerging technologies don't replace proven operational-excellence disciplines – they amplify them. Companies that keep iterating this trio – methodologies, machines and mindsets – will convert efficiency into durable competitive advantage.
Forbes
06-06-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Food Safety Depends On Every Link In The Supply Chain
Colorful fish and vegetables can be purchased at a public market. For communities to be nourished, their food supply must be safe to eat. This sounds obvious, but it's worth repeating, because every year, about 1 in 10 people worldwide (or about 600 million people) become sick from contaminated food, and 420,000 lose their lives. About 125,000 of those deaths annually are children under 5 years old—a disproportionate tragedy that comes at the expense of our future. And in low- and mid-income countries, US$110 billion is lost every year in productivity and medical expenses resulting from unsafe food, per World Health Organization (WHO) data. Addressing food safety is truly crucial not just to our lives but to our livelihoods, our economic success, and the well-being of every aspect of the food system. World Food Safety Day, on June 7, is a perfect opportunity for everyone around the globe to recommit to ensuring a safe food supply for all. 'Food safety is not just about preventing harm,' says Markus Lipp, Senior Food Safety Officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. 'It is about creating confidence and trust in the food we eat, in the systems that protect us, that protect food safety and in the institutions that serve the public good for safe food.' So how do we ensure the future of food is safe? First: Food safety is not isolated—every link along the food chain must prioritize safety. Food safety begins on fields and farms, with healthy soils and positive growing practices, and continues through processing, transportation, cooking, and serving. This whole-system approach can be truly transformative. In fact, many of the 200+ diseases 'that we know can be carried by food are preventable and sometimes even eradicable,' says Luz María De Regil, Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety at WHO. Second: We can't just respond to challenges that currently exist; we have to be prepared to face unprecedented and complex challenges to food safety as the climate crisis worsens. According to the WHO, the changing climate will affect the persistence and occurrence of bacteria, viruses, parasites, harmful algae, and fungi—and the vectors that spread them. 'We're going to have emerging pathogens coming in, especially given that the climate is changing…microbes like hot, humid, wet environments,' said Barbara Kowalcyk, an Associate Professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. Third: Perhaps most urgently, we need to champion evidence-based policymaking and global cooperation. This year's World Food Safety Day highlights this, focusing particularly on the 'essential role of science in ensuring food safety and enabling informed decision-making.' Now more than ever, we need to devote more resources to scientific progress, international collaboration, and solid regulatory frameworks—not less. But recent cuts to research funding and staff in the United States by the Trump-Vance Administration, including in food safety inspection labs, are having concerning ripple effects across the globe. Foodborne illness outbreaks could become harder to detect and contain, leading to more people in more widespread areas getting sick, experts warn. In addition, the dismantling of the U. S. Agency for international Development (USAID) shuttered several Feed the Future Innovation Labs, which brought university research to countries including Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Guatemala to design and implement food safety interventions in poultry production, post-harvest crop storage, farmers markets, households, and more. So this World Food Safety Day, WHO's calls to action encourage all of us—policymakers, business leaders, and eaters—to step up. Communities can find ways to apply the WHO's Global Strategy for Food Safety 2022-2030, to ensure that all people, everywhere, consume safe and healthy food. And initiatives like the GAIN's EatSafe program and the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which aims to standardize evidence-based food safety protocols in ways that respect local culture, offer models to learn from. I often think of something Abdou Tenkouano told me last year. At that time he was the Executive Director of CORAF, an organization in West and Central Africa that uses agriculture to build community resilience, and now he's Director General at icipe, which uses insect science to tackle food security, health, and environmental challenges in Africa. 'This is a global village,' he said. 'We are all interconnected, interdependent, interlinked.' And when it comes to food, we all have a responsibility to keep one another safe.
Indian Express
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
In 50 years of statehood, Sikkim has emerged from being a small Himalayan outpost to a sustainable development leader
Written by Vimal Khawas and Rakhee Bhattacharya Fifty years ago, on May 16, 1975, Sikkim began its journey as the 22nd state of the Indian federation. Its merger with India was rooted in a complex interplay of internal dissent and India's larger geostrategic interests. Sikkim, with a population of just 0.7 million, accounts for a mere 0.05 per cent of India's population. Despite its small size, this Himalayan state has emerged as a model for sustainable development over the past 50 years, achieving remarkable economic prosperity, socio-political harmony, and environmental stewardship. With a per capita income of Rs 5.88 lakh in 2024, Sikkim ranks among India's top-performing states. From a modest agrarian economy in 1975, with a GSDP of Rs 50-100 crore, it has grown at a CAGR exceeding 13 per cent, driven by eco-friendly policies and consistent governance. Sikkim's focus on sustainable development has set it apart. By leveraging its indigenous and agrarian strengths, the state achieved economic self-sufficiency, boasting the highest per capita developmental expenditure in India. In 2016, Sikkim became the world's first 100 per cent organic state, a transformative initiative launched in 2003 to protect its fragile environment and promote healthy living. This milestone earned global recognition, including the UN Sustainable Development Leadership Award in 2016 and the UN FAO's Future Policy Gold Award in 2018. In 2024, Sikkim's eco-friendly programme, Mero Rukh, Mero Santati (My Tree, My Legacy), received the SKOCH Silver Award at COP 28, reinforcing its status as a global leader in sustainability. The state has invested in social infrastructure and its literacy rate has risen from 17 per cent in 1971 to over 90 per cent in 2025, supported by a free education policy up to the college level with a student-teacher ratio of less than 8:1, the best among Indian states. The healthcare system has likewise progressed significantly. With one doctor per 595 people in 2019, it is far higher than the national average. The Infant Mortality Rate in the state, at five deaths per 1,000 live births, is one of the lowest in the country and the Total Fertility Rate, at 1.1 children per woman, is also very low as compared to the national average, as of 2019-21. Sikkim has shown notable improvement in the 'quality of life' indicators over time. Household access to electricity (99.3 per cent) and sanitation facilities (85.3 per cent) is much better than the national average, but access to drinking water (94 per cent) is slightly below the national benchmark, as of 2021. The state continues to focus on social infrastructure and has the highest per capita social expenditure of Rs 35,673 among Indian states. The transformative Dhara Vikas Abhiyan, launched in 2008, exemplifies an innovative approach to sustainable life in the hilly terrain of Sikkim. This initiative combats water scarcity in drought-prone south and west Sikkim by reviving drying springs using hydrogeological techniques like contour trenches and percolation pits. Sikkim has significantly improved road connectivity, increasing road density from 12 km per 100 sq km in 1975 to 148 km in 2020, despite its challenging hilly terrain. Income poverty dropped from 30.9 per cent in 2004-05 to 2.6 per cent in 2023-24, driven by inclusive policies. Consequently, Sikkim's HDI rose from 0.55 in 1990 to 0.83 in 2024, ranking it second in India after Goa (0.85). Social empowerment has been systematically backed by political rights at the grassroots level. Sikkim has bagged six National Panchayat Awards in 2024 and the Sarojini Naidu Women Achievers' Award in 2023 for 14 women, highlighting its social progress. Sikkim was granted special status under Article 371F of the Indian Constitution during its merger with India in 1975, providing safeguards to preserve its unique traditional land, culture, and laws, including restrictions on property ownership by non-Sikkimese residents. It has helped the state not only preserve its traditions but also create a shared space among the communities, which consists of Nepalis, Bhutias, and Lepchas with a harmonious blend of cultures. Both Hinduism and Buddhism have shaped their vibrant culture and created social cohesion as a strong pillar for Sikkim's progressive journey, while maintaining its distinct identity. It is noteworthy that Sikkim is the only state that has never confronted any major community conflict or internal security threat. Fifty years of such progressive policies have made this small Himalayan state a bright spot in India. It is arguably the most progressive state in Northeast India. A pristine Himalayan state with rich biodiversity and cultural heritage, Sikkim has become a global and national tourism destination. From just 5,000 tourists in 1975, Sikkim welcomed 13.2 lakh visitors in 2024, a 260-fold increase. Contributing 8-10 per cent to the GSDP, tourism has increasingly become the most important parameter of Sikkim's economy. Being a fully organic state, Sikkim attracts environment and health-conscious travellers. Despite its achievements, Sikkim faces significant challenges. Natural disasters and climate change threaten the state, while its hilly terrain limits infrastructure and industrial growth. Social issues, such as increasing suicide rates and crimes against children, demand urgent attention. With 70 per cent of its revenue reliant on central funds, Sikkim must strengthen its financial independence. Prioritising equitable development over GDP is crucial to ensure inclusive progress in the state's development journey. The writers are professors, Special Centre for the Study of North East India, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Scoop
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
FAO Presents Credentials To Tonga's PM, Reaffirms Commitment To Agricultural & Fisheries Development
Press Release – UN FAO This landmark event brings together Pacific Island nations to collectively address shared challenges and explore opportunities to advance agriculture and forestry across the region. 28 May 2025, Nuku'alofa – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Subregional Coordinator for the Pacific Islands and FAO Representative to the Kingdom of Tonga, Mr. Guangzhou Qu, officially presented his credentials to the Prime Minister of Tonga, Hon. (Dr) 'Aisake Valu Eke, at the Prime Minister's Office today. Mr. Qu expressed his appreciation to the Government of Tonga for its longstanding partnership with FAO and acknowledged the country's active role in advancing global efforts to strengthen agrifood systems, combat climate change, and promote sustainable development. He reaffirmed FAO's commitment to working closely with the Government to support national efforts to enhance food security and resilience. Working together for agrifood system transformation In a separate meeting, Mr. Qu also presented his credentials to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Hon. Siosiua Moala Halavatau. Expressing gratitude for the ongoing collaboration, he emphasized FAO's strong alignment with Tonga's development priorities and highlighted the organization's commitment to transforming Tonga's agrifood systems through initiatives that promote biodiversity, the One Health approach, digital agriculture, climate adaptation, and healthy diets. The opening of the Pacific Week of Agriculture and Forestry (PWAF) on 26 May in Nuku'alofa, hosted by the Government of Tonga with support from FAO and the Pacific Community (SPC), underscores Tonga's leadership in fostering regional dialogue and cooperation. This landmark event brings together Pacific Island nations to collectively address shared challenges and explore opportunities to advance agriculture and forestry across the region.
Scoop
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
FAO Presents Credentials To Tonga's PM, Reaffirms Commitment To Agricultural & Fisheries Development
Press Release – UN FAO This landmark event brings together Pacific Island nations to collectively address shared challenges and explore opportunities to advance agriculture and forestry across the region. 28 May 2025, Nuku'alofa – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Subregional Coordinator for the Pacific Islands and FAO Representative to the Kingdom of Tonga, Mr. Guangzhou Qu, officially presented his credentials to the Prime Minister of Tonga, Hon. (Dr) 'Aisake Valu Eke, at the Prime Minister's Office today. Mr. Qu expressed his appreciation to the Government of Tonga for its longstanding partnership with FAO and acknowledged the country's active role in advancing global efforts to strengthen agrifood systems, combat climate change, and promote sustainable development. He reaffirmed FAO's commitment to working closely with the Government to support national efforts to enhance food security and resilience. Working together for agrifood system transformation In a separate meeting, Mr. Qu also presented his credentials to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Hon. Siosiua Moala Halavatau. Expressing gratitude for the ongoing collaboration, he emphasized FAO's strong alignment with Tonga's development priorities and highlighted the organization's commitment to transforming Tonga's agrifood systems through initiatives that promote biodiversity, the One Health approach, digital agriculture, climate adaptation, and healthy diets. The opening of the Pacific Week of Agriculture and Forestry (PWAF) on 26 May in Nuku'alofa, hosted by the Government of Tonga with support from FAO and the Pacific Community (SPC), underscores Tonga's leadership in fostering regional dialogue and cooperation. This landmark event brings together Pacific Island nations to collectively address shared challenges and explore opportunities to advance agriculture and forestry across the region.
