Insight: How food and drink manufacturers can avoid a half-baked tech transformation

Too many food and drink manufacturers rush into digital projects and end up with costly disappointments. In part two of this series, ITI Group’s Oliver Stone explains how to build a roadmap that delivers quick wins, avoids common pitfalls, and creates long-term resilience.

In the previous article, I outlined how rising input costs, labour shortages and tighter regulations are eroding margins for food and drink manufacturers. Faced with these pressures, many businesses fall into tactical firefighting – addressing the problem directly in front of them, only for another to emerge. But reactive fixes rarely deliver lasting improvements. The answer is a structured transformation roadmap that reduces risk and delivers results.

Step 1 – Be clear on your priorities

The first step should always be clarity. Every manufacturer has dozens of potential projects competing for attention, with hundreds of digital tools and systems on the market – from automation to predictive maintenance and AI-enabled planning. All can add value, but chasing too many at once spreads resources thin, burns capital and leaves teams disillusioned when projects stall.

The right starting point for your business depends on your biggest pressure. Ask yourself: what keeps you awake at night?

• If it’s cost-driven, focus on reducing waste, boosting overall equipment efficiency (OEE) or cutting downtime.

• If it’s compliance-driven, automate record-keeping, traceability and quality control to simplify reporting.

• If it’s customer-driven, focus on strengthening on-time-in-full (OTIF) performance and improving communication and visibility across the supply chain.

• If it’s employee-driven, reduce manual burden and modernise tools to create a more attractive workplace.

Once the true priority is clear, the right technology choices become easier. It shapes which systems you choose, how you design your data architecture, and additional training requirements. Without this clarity, it’s all too easy to invest in “shiny” toys that solve symptoms but not root causes. With it, businesses can focus resources where it counts, and build a business case grounded in real outcomes.

Step 2 – Measure what you change

Change without metrics is just a guessing game. Without hard figures, projects risk being defunded because no one can show whether the investment paid off. Did downtime fall? Did labour productivity rise? Did customer service improve? The food industry already lives by measures such as OEE, OTIF, and labour and unit cost. Embedding these into your roadmap provides a clear baseline to track progress objectively and adjust where necessary.

We recommend frameworks such as the SCOR (Supply Chain Operations Reference) model, which provides manufacturers with a standard set of performance indicators across the value chain. But whichever you choose, the principle is the same: if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – and you certainly can’t defend it at board level.

Step 3 – Fix the foundations

Technology transformation rarely fails because of the tech itself. More often, projects collapse under weak processes and overreliance on key individuals.

Too many manufacturers lean heavily on a handful of employees who hold critical knowledge in their heads – the planner who remembers every customer quirk, the engineer who knows which machine “needs a kick”, the supervisor who knows where stock hides. Lose them and the operation quickly struggles.

Building resilience means having clearly defined roles, documented processes, standardised methods and cross-trained teams so knowledge lives in the system, not just in people.

Processes are just as important. Automating a poor system doesn’t magically make it better – it just amplifies its flaws. Mapping out existing workflows, spotting bottlenecks and challenging existing ways of working before layering on digital tools ensures technology unlocks performance instead of magnifying inefficiency.

Step 4 – Bring workers with you

Food factories are often people-heavy environments. Change imposed from above without engaging workers breeds resistance. The most effective programmes are co-designed with operators and supervisors – the people who live the processes every day.

That means time on the factory floor, observing how tasks are done, asking where frustrations lie, incorporating their ideas, and showing how change will make life easier. Workers who see compliance reduced from 20 minutes of paperwork to a single click quickly become advocates.

Communication is equally important. Staff need to understand what’s in it for them – i.e. less repetition, easier reporting, safer jobs, new roles to move into, and a more secure business overall. Champions and sponsors at every level are vital for keeping initiatives on track, helping address concerns and reinforce benefits.

Step 5 – Start small, move fast, think big

Transformation succeeds when it delivers early, visible wins. “Big bang” reinventions often overrun and underdeliver. Pilots are a better, less risky approach, allowing you to prove value quickly, build belief and create the confidence to scale.

Take one of the UK’s largest bakeries. For years, pallets of flour and sugar left the warehouse only to disappear into a black hole on the factory floor. Management knew what had left the stores, but had no reliable record of what was actually being used. Ingredient records showed huge variances, with no insight into whether the gap was waste, poor quality or inaccurate measurement.

By introducing automated material tracking, the bakery gained full visibility. Compliance improved, supplier negotiations improved, and costly losses were stopped. The pilot proved value fast, making it easy to sustain momentum and secure further investment.

Another client – a leading soft drinks manufacturer – replaced paper-based performance tracking with a real-time OEE platform. Within three months, efficiency rose by 4% – equivalent to an extra 400 cases per shift.

Quick wins like these show that transformation is not only achievable but profitable. From there, manufacturers can scale with pace and confidence.

Why the right partner makes the difference

The difference between success and failure in technology projects comes down to preparation, prioritisation and execution. Get those right, and the gains can be genuinely transformative. Get them wrong and you’re left with spiralling costs and projects that never deliver.

For food and drink leaders, the next step isn’t about buying more tools – it’s about asking the right questions. Where is the biggest pressure point in your business today? How will you measure success? Are your processes and people ready for change?

Having the right partner can help you answer those questions. At ITI Group, we’re not just tech experts – we come from industry. Our consultants understand the realities of running production lines, firefighting operational problems, and managing compliance demands. We know the pitfalls because we’ve seen them firsthand, and we know how to avoid them.

Our role is to help manufacturers chart a realistic path forward. A good first step is our free-to-download Digital Readiness Assessment, a practical tool to define your priorities, highlight risks, and shape a transformation plan that makes your operation more agile, more resilient, and more competitive.

The pressures facing food and drink aren’t going away. The question isn’t whether to transform, but how. At ITI Group, we’re ready. Are you?