There has been an increasing demand for sustainability over recent years from customers and authorities. Last year’s announcement of new rules¹ for businesses to demonstrate their Net Zero commitment highlights the need for UK businesses to have a comprehensive, tangible Net Zero strategy in place.
These demands and rules put sustainability priorities as the biggest threat for UK food and beverage businesses in a 2021 industry survey – with 48% of businesses most concerned about it. The concluding report explains that in dealing with these evolving challenges, “digital transformation must be viewed as imperative”².
When establishing a Net Zero strategy for the future, food businesses must consider the implementation and use of digital systems to optimise their processes and improve their carbon footprint. This can be done internally or by working with a digital partner to develop and implement changes to your existing processes.
It’s always beneficial to work with a digital partner whose expertise and skills can complement your business and bring additional value to your operations, rather than using resources to implement solutions in-house.
There are a number of sustainability benefits for food businesses implementing digital systems:
- Eliminate paper trails.
- Reduced waste production.
- Better insights for opportunities.
Read on below to learn more about these benefits.
ELIMINATE PAPER TRAILS
Adding an electronic system to manage and support your recipe weighing, production and dispatch stages will allow you to process data digitally using scanners and a terminal or PC. Reducing your reliance on and usage of paperwork is an effective way to improve your business’ carbon footprint – while also making strides in optimising your operations.
This is particularly notable when dealing with reporting. While paper reports take up large amounts of space waiting to be called upon, digital reports are stored electronically. This means they take up no physical space and can be accessed in a matter of seconds at the click of a button.
REDUCED WASTE PRODUCTION
Implementing digital systems and software to facilitate your production operations can improve the accuracy of your pre-bake processes and ingredient usage. Doing so will help you reduce the amount of waste your business is producing.
Having less waste on-site will complement your business’ efforts towards improving your carbon footprint. It will also save your business huge amounts of money thanks to:
- Reduced spending on waste collection/management.
- Reduced spending on ingredients that would be wasted.
- More products hitting the shelves for sale.
BETTER INSIGHTS FOR OPPORTUNITIES
Many digital packages or software solutions are designed to automatically record and present data from your production processes in an easy-to-understand format. Having such a system that automatically processes the relevant data allows you to guarantee certain metrics are being recorded without the risk of human error.
This means you can rely on your information being accurate and consistent. As a result, you can gain better insights into your operations thanks to the extensive range of data that is being collected and recorded against your day-to-day business. These insights can help you identify opportunities for continuous improvement across your business and net zero objectives.
¹https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59136214
²Global Food and Beverage Industry Trends and Strategic Insights, 2021 – IDC/Aptean