Current supply chain woes have made nearly every aspect of processing an ongoing guessing game, from forecasting ingredient availability to ensuring finished foods arrive at their destinations on time. One way to help make sense of the situation is to invest in track-and-trace technology that can monitor every step of a product’s journey.

While we hope the COVID-19 pandemic is fading into the background, we still need to be concerned with labor shortages, transportation interruptions, political issues, weather extremes, and other peripheral circumstances that can still break critical links in the supply chain.

We hear a lot (really, constantly) about the supply chain and the many causes for it faltering the past year: shortage of labor to move goods—especially truck drivers and dock workers—inconsistent ingredient supplies, record inflation for materials and on and on. 

For food and beverage processors, supply chain management covers a lot of territory, including maintaining inputs and outputs.

Supply chain challenges are a constant source of stress for food and beverage processors, as disruptions can upend production schedules and plant operations.

Industrial IoT technology gives food manufacturers and the food service industry real-time data to identify problems, reduce waste and prevent expensive, brand-damaging outbreaks and recalls.