KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Consumer behavior is unpredictable, making it difficult to plan long-term capital investments on demand forecasts.
• Focusing on product families, rather than single products, allows for flexibility in designing, building and managing production assets.
• Bringing R&D, FSQA, operations, engineering and marketing together in early design stages supports future success.

Food and beverage manufacturers make capital decisions with long time horizons in mind. New lines, specialized equipment and full facility expansions are justified by projected volumes that are expected to hold steady for years. This works when markets move slowly. It becomes a liability when they do not.

In practice, demand often shifts in the time it takes to bring a project online. A line designed for a growth forecast may start up just as that forecast is revised downward. At that point, the options are limited: invest more capital to reshape the asset or operate well below its intended capacity while depreciation continues. 

A recent shift in demand for value priced wine illustrates the issue. Producers expanded capacity rapidly to chase a surge in high volume, low margin products. Tanks, fermentation systems and storage infrastructure were sized for a growth curve that appeared durable at the time. When consumer interest receded almost as quickly as it had emerged, those investments became difficult to absorb. Equipment built for peak throughput was left operating intermittently, and seasonal production windows further limited the ability to recover fixed costs.

These examples highlight a broader issue. The traditional model assumes stability long enough for a major investment to pay back, but the market no longer behaves this way. Consumer behavior is unpredictable, and product life cycles have shortened to the point where manufacturers are often committing to 20-year assets based on projections which may hold true for only a fraction of that time.

This gap between planning horizons and market horizons points to a need for a different mindset, one which focuses less on refining a fixed solution and more on preparing for change. Engineering for uncertainty begins with acknowledging that forecasts will shift and early decisions should preserve the ability to respond rather than locking the facility into a single path. Other industries, including pharmaceuticals, adopted this posture years ago as product portfolios diversified and regulatory expectations increased. Food and beverage manufacturing faces a similar inflection point.

The challenge is not simply how to design flexible lines — it is how to approach capital projects in a way that recognizes the volatility of the market they serve.

Seeing it Differently from Day One

Early project decisions are often made with more certainty than the market supports. Forecasts guide capacity, footprint and equipment selection, yet those forecasts may shift long before the facility reaches steady-state operation. Even well constructed market analyses cannot reliably predict how long a new product will hold consumer attention or how quickly demand may move elsewhere.

Food and beverage facilities depend on standardization to protect quality and maintain consistency across networks. This same standardization becomes a constraint when market behavior changes. Designing a new line to mirror the specifications of an established operation can inadvertently lock the facility into assumptions that may not remain valid through startup.

Adopting a planning mindset that anticipates uncertainty changes how early decisions are made. The objective is not to improve the accuracy of projections, but to avoid committing to choices that narrow the project’s options before the market trajectory is proven. Small decisions in conceptual design — utility capacity, structural allowances, spatial allocation — can determine whether future adaptations require modest modifications or extensive reconstruction.

This mindset extends beyond engineering. Projects gain resilience when the development team includes R&D, FSQA, operations and marketing from the outset. These functions bring perspective on formulation changes, regulatory considerations, emerging product variants and commercial timing. Their involvement reduces late-stage design changes, aligns the facility with business objectives and improves the standardization and efficiency that can be built in from the start. Cross functional participation does not eliminate uncertainty, but it improves the organization’s ability to absorb it without disruptive redesign.

Approaching the project this way reframes capital planning. Instead of refining a single assumed future, the team designs a path which remains viable across several possible futures. This is the foundation of engineering for uncertainty.

Learning from Other Industries

Industries that manage rapidly evolving product portfolios have already shifted how they plan capital. Their facilities are organized around families of related products rather than discrete items, enabling the operation to remain relevant even as individual products move in or out of demand. This creates an investment structure that performs more reliably when forecasts prove volatile.

Biotechnology provides a clear example. As product pipelines diversified, companies began designing manufacturing platforms capable of supporting different compounds with limited reconfiguration. Adaptability became inherent in the facility strategy rather than a retrofit response. The underlying reasoning is simple: in conditions of unpredictability, broad capability provides better long term value than narrow specialization.

Food manufacturing faces a parallel challenge. Demand shifts quickly, and portfolio variations emerge faster than traditional project cycles can accommodate. Designing at the product family level can reduce the frequency and scale of future retrofits, even if initial costs are marginally higher. This is not a direct transfer of biotech practice but an illustration of how another sector has made capital projects more durable in the face of uncertainty.

Operational constraints in food production — especially those related to cleanability and hygienic design — limit the degree of modularity that can be introduced. These constraints do not negate the value of adaptability; they simply redefine where and how it can be implemented. The lesson is not to replicate another industry’s configuration but to adopt its planning philosophy: invest in capabilities that retain relevance as the portfolio evolves.

These industries demonstrate that long term capital performance improves when early decisions allow for variability. The specific engineering solutions differ by sector, but the logic of designing around uncertainty is widely applicable.

The Bigger Risk: Missing the Next Wave

The most significant consequence of inflexible capital is not stranded assets — it is opportunity cost. When a facility’s design is anchored to a narrow set of assumptions, the organization may be unable to respond when a market segment accelerates. By the time capacity is added, the growth cycle may have already peaked.

Product life cycles in food and beverage categories continue to compress. A product can rise quickly, reach saturation and decline before a major capital project moves from design through commissioning. If a facility cannot shift capacity or repurpose equipment efficiently, the company risks losing access to emerging markets that competitors are able to capture. In these cases, the lost revenue from unaddressed opportunity often exceeds the cost of underutilized assets.

The dynamic nature of consumer behavior has made responsiveness a competitive differentiator. A capital plan built for a single forecasted outcome may technically succeed but strategically underperform if it cannot support what comes next. Companies that consistently capture new waves of demand tend to have facilities and project development practices designed to support variation, not just volume.

This shift in risk profile is central to the argument for engineering for uncertainty. The purpose of adaptable capital is not only to safeguard against downturns, but to position operations to capitalize on the next high value opportunity when it emerges.

Engineering for Uncertainty

Engineering for uncertainty translates the planning philosophy into specific, practical strategies. The first step is identifying which aspects of the facility must accommodate potential change and which can remain fixed. Infrastructure elements such as utilities, service corridors and structural provisions often provide the highest return when designed with additional capacity. Early investment in oversizing conduit, chilled water, compressed air or electrical distribution can prevent far more expensive reconstruction later.

Layout decisions also influence long term adaptability. Equipment spacing, access routes and provisions for future tie ins determine how easily production can be reconfigured as product mixes evolve. Designing for product families rather than individual SKUs requires evaluating material handling, sanitation needs and process dependencies with a broader envelope in mind. These decisions introduce flexibility without committing to specific future products.

Phasing strategies are equally important. Rather than executing full-scale construction at once, organizations can deploy initial capacity that validates demand while maintaining the ability to scale efficiently. This approach is common among startups but is equally effective for established manufacturers launching products with limited historical data. The goal is to structure the investment so that committing early does not preclude course corrections later.

Cross functional alignment plays a critical operational role here as well. When R&D, FSQA, operations, engineering and marketing work together during definition and early design, the facility reflects the realities of product evolution, regulatory requirements and commercial timing. This reduces late-stage changes, improves design efficiency and strengthens the adaptability of the finished facility.

Engineering for uncertainty does not introduce unnecessary complexity. It reframes the project to ensure that the facility can evolve, not just operate. By building flexibility into the decision process — not only the production line — capital investments remain viable even as the market shifts.

What's Next

The next phase of food and beverage manufacturing will reward organizations that treat uncertainty as a core design parameter rather than a disruption to be managed. Forecasts will continue to shift, and product lifecycles will remain compressed, but capital projects can be structured to absorb this variability. Facilities planned with cross functional input, scalable investment paths and infrastructure that supports a range of future operating scenarios will consistently outperform those built around a single projection. This approach does not eliminate complexity; it clarifies where to invest early so that course corrections remain feasible when the market changes.

Ultimately, the advantage belongs to the manufacturers who design their projects to remain viable as conditions evolve. Engineering for uncertainty is not about adding flexibility everywhere, but about making disciplined decisions which preserve optionality where it matters most. When teams frame capital deployment this way, they reduce the risk of stranded assets and improve their ability to capture emerging opportunities. In an environment defined by rapid consumer shifts, long term success depends not on guessing the future correctly, but on ensuring the facility can adapt when the future shifts.