Aptean Food & Beverage: Ingredients to Accelerate Your Growth (UK)

The Challenger Brand Recipe Book: 7 Ingredients to Accelerate the Growth of Your Food & Beverage Company

Are You Ready to Challenge the Status Quo?

In 1893, pharmacist Caleb Bradham decided to create some new flavours of drink for his pharmacy’s soda fountain. His ‘Brad’s drink’—a mixture of caramel, lemon oil, kola nuts, nutmeg, sugar and water—quickly became a hit with customers.

Unknowingly, Bradham had just invented Pepsi: the world’s first, and arguably most successful, challenger brand.

Today, over 150 million Pepsi sodas are sold worldwide every single day—a level of success that most companies aspire to achieve. But what is it that enables brands like Pepsi to grow rapidly and continually disrupt the market?

To help food and drink companies challenge the status quo, Aptean has studied the DNA of successful challenger brands. Through our research, we’ve identified seven key ingredients that these organisations share— which could help your business to create a recipe for rapid growth. Keep reading to discover these ingredients.

“Being a challenger brand is a massive advantage because I think it gives you the license to push, to disrupt, to reframe category norms, to challenge convention–and to have a little fun and push a little bit more.”

Todd Kaplan, CMO, Pepsi

Ingredient #1: A Great Product

Most high-growth companies don’t follow the competition. They tread new ground, guiding consumers towards their vision by creating a great product that disrupts the market.

Challenger brands are skilled at identifying new sales opportunities or changing the way people think. Within existing categories, they look for ways to move the dial. But there’s a world of difference between an innovative idea and a market-ready product.

Most brand leaders are highly creative, but weaknesses in the new product development (NPD) process can stop a great concept making it to the shelf edge. Equally, conflicting opinions about the direction a product should move in can dilute its unique selling points.

To get game-changing products to market, you need to create an environment where teams can collaborate freely while staying within the brief.

Inspiring Ideas: Who’s Nailing Product Development?

Here are some brands that are challenging their category with great product ideas:

› Halo Top has reformulated ice cream into a healthier snack

› Oatly has made oat milk a mainstream alternative to almond and soy milk

› GA Foods has created healthy, shelf-stable cook-at-home meals for delivery to seniors living independently or in managed care

› Fever-Tree switched the focus of a G&T from the gin to the tonic

› Holmen Cheese is pushing the boundaries of cheesemaking, creating custom products including plantbased/vegan cheese, non-dairy cheese, lactose-free cheese, zero-fat and zero-cholesterol cheese

PLM: Product Innovation’s Secret Weapon

For many fast-growing food and beverage brands, PLM technology is a critical tool for refining ideas and streamlining product development processes.

PLM software centralises project data, giving everyone involved in product innovation a single source of truth. Teams can communicate clearly and openly through a common data environment, establishing processes and checklists that ensure new ideas get to market quickly without compromising on your original brief.

PLM software also helps challenger brands to stay accountable, as product specifications can be tracked and saved throughout development. By capturing how and why recipes evolve, you have a solid foundation for adapting recipes to meet local requirements.

Make faster, more informed product development decisions with PLM as your single source of truth

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PLM-Driven Product Innovation: Monin

Monin has been manufacturing high value products since 1912. It currently distributes flavoured syrups, liquors, sauces and smoothies to more than 150 countries.

The company has eight R&D and production facilities across the world, and it’s using PLM software to standardise NPD processes and tailor products for each end market.

Monin chose Aptean PLM Lascom Edition, our specialist food and beverage innovation platform, to ensure information flows seamlessly through the design chain to manufacturing.

Aptean PLM Lascom Edition enables Monin to internationalise products by automatically calculating nutrition information from raw materials and generating labels in 28 languages. Our software also defines product specifications for both local regulations and custom client requirements.

“With Aptean PLM, everybody has access to the same information at the same time. We save a lot of time!”

Nathalie, R&D Project Manager, Monin

Ingredient #2: A Robust Supply Network

After a great idea comes great ingredients. And for many challenger brands, the mission is to not only source materials at the best price, but to ensure those ingredients are of the right quality and ethical standards to support your company values.

Building a robust supplier network is critical to managing fluctuating availability without having to compromise on your principles. And many challenger brands find it easiest to manage vendor relationships online.

Creating a central, digital database of all your suppliers can enable your brand to make informed decisions about what to buy, when and who from. This way, you can respond to rising demand while still meeting your core brand values.

Value-Driven Sourcing: Who’s Matching Their Materials to Their Mantra?

Here are some examples of brands using ingredients that meet their principles:

› Tony’s Chocolonely has disrupted the confectionery market by sourcing its cocoa from ethically run, 100% slave-free farms

› Annie’s Mac & Cheese has built its success on using organic ingredients, combining convenience and quality

› San Francisco Bay Coffee is committed to ethical, sustainable coffee production, sourcing most of their coffee direct from farmers to ensure fair pay

› Red Gold tomatoes has established its own seed breeding programme to control product quality from germination to harvest

ERP: Flexible Sourcing’s Best Friend

Many successful challenger brands use ERP software to digitise their supplier data and make real-time sourcing decisions.

While there are dedicated supply chain management solutions on the market, these come at a price. An end-to-end ERP system can often prove a better investment as it includes supplier management tools alongside many other useful features.

If you’re considering the ERP route, look for a system that includes a vendor item catalogue. You can use this feature to manage your supplier relationships in one place: from requesting vendor quotes and comparing prices to viewing lead times and tracking shipments.

Another advantage of using ERP software to strengthen your supply chain is the integration with other business data. For example, you can create product specification databases that link raw materials with recipes. Your ERP system will use this connection to calculate the exact ingredient quantities required for each order and cross-reference it against inventory data, so you never run out of essential materials.

ERP and Inventory Efficiency: SanoRice

SanoRice is the market-leading producer of rice cakes, corn cakes and other cakes made from puffed grains. It packs 15 million puffed grain cakes every day for distribution to more than 40 countries.

The company has three factories in Europe, but for years it managed inventory for these locations via Excel files. To strengthen its supply chain, SanoRice invested in Aptean Food & Beverage ERP

Aptean Food & Beverage ERP not only centralised SanoRice’s supply chain management; it enabled the company to make more efficient decisions. For example, SanoRice has since moved from a first in, first out (FIFO) model to a first expire, first out (FEFO) approach for some perishable ingredients.

“Before we implemented Aptean’s ERP, we had large inventory variances at the end of the year. Our inventory variances have dropped dramatically, from substantial euro amounts to an insignificant figure. It’s a huge difference.”

Marco Netten, IT Manager, SanoRice

Ingredient #3: Rapid, Lean Production Capabilities

Challenger brands often experience rapid growth. The popularity of food and drink can take off quickly—especially if a product goes viral on social media.

To ‘strike while the iron is hot’ and capitalise on new customer demand, your brand needs to respond quickly. And speed to market is only possible with efficient and responsive production capabilities.

Manual processes can limit how quickly your organisation manufactures goods without making mistakes. That’s why many challenger brands focus on automating core production processes, to run faster and leaner without impacting product quality.

If you’re investing in an ERP system to improve supplier management, you don’t need additional technology to automate production. ERP software can help you optimise manufacturing processes and shorten your time to market.

Growth Spurt: Who’s Responding Well to Rising Demand?

Here are some brands that have capitalized on a sudden increase in consumer demand:

› Sales of Little Moons mochi balls soared by 2000% when they went viral on TikTok in 2020

› B2B tea and coffee supplier Finlay’s is adding a multi-million-pound cold brew coffee facility at its Hull manufacturing site in response to the drink’s soaring popularity

› Plant-based meat alternative brand THIS increased year-on-year sales by 246% in 2022 thanks to the rising adoption of flexitarian, vegetarian and vegan diets

ERP, OEE and EAM: The Manufacturing Automation Trifecta

Economy of scale is critical to brand growth, which is why many challenger brands use ERP software to deliver improvements across their value chain.

Rather than integrating multiple niche solutions and managing their associated costs, ERP software provides fast-growing companies with an opportunity to optimise production from end-to-end through a single technology investment.

There are many processes that an ERP platform can automate to improve your production capabilities. For example, you can analyse the data collected from your handheld barcode scanners to reconcile and manage inventory. This data can be cross-referenced with customer orders to optimise scheduling around available inventory—rather than just tackling jobs in chronological order.

The best ERP solutions on the market can even model production scenarios and assign backup plans, so you can continually optimise production efficiency.

As your company grows and your revenue increases, you can then choose to implement new technologies that enhance production. For example, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and enterprise asset management (EAM) software can digitise asset management and maintenance—so you’re not held back by slow equipment or unplanned downtime.

Learn

how to mitigate risks, save money and increase revenue with Aptean’s latest food and beverage ERP whitepaper

Driving Growth Through Automation: Hela

Thissen and Monogram Foods

Ketchup brand Hela Thissen is a great example of using automation to drive growth.

As a relatively small organisation, Hela Thissen can flexibly respond to customers’ changing needs. The company often runs short lines, trying out new products and variations to increase market share.

To innovate at pace, Hela Thissen has automated many of its core manufacturing processes using Aptean Food & Beverage ERP. These include batch registration, pallet administration and SSCC labelling.

Another food manufacturer using automation to increase its production capabilities is Monogram Foods. The company has digitised asset management across 10 facilities using Aptean Process Manufacturing OEE, increasing its OEE score by 10 points while maintaining high volume lines.

Read Hela Thissen’s Full Story

Read Monogram Foods’ Full Story

“If we had not automated our business processes, the growth of our product range and our organisation would not have gone so smoothly.”

Jean-Pierre Verhasselt, Administrative Assistant, Hela Thissen

Ingredient #4: Scalability

Automating everyday processes can help your organisation to increase production. However, it’s not the only ingredient that a fast-growing brand needs to drive expansion.

The most successful challenger brands are constantly identifying new sales opportunities, and exploring new channels and markets. As demand for your products rise you need to find additional ways to reach consumers—but this involves scaling your manufacturing and distribution operations.

Choice of technology can often impact how seamlessly your brand is able to expand. Many challenger brands find cloud-based software is a better option for product and channel growth than on-premise solutions.

Scalable Success: Who’s Expanding Their Business to Seize New Sales?

Here are some brands that have scaled their operations to meet rising consumer demand:

› Viral energy drink Prime has taken the world by storm, generating $250 million in global retail sales since it launched in January 2022

› Keto cereal brand Magic Spoon went from online-only to wholesale in just six months, and now has a physical retail presence in Target stores

› Kombucha brand Health-Ade scaled its operation from local farmer’s markets to become America’s fastestselling kombucha product

Cloud Software: A Flexible Platform For Scalable Growth

A cloud environment gives challenger brands a better platform for expansion than on-premises software, as it’s much easier to scale.

With cloud software, you can quickly and easily add new users, system permissions and other backend options as your company expands. You’re never being held back by the limitations of your technology stack.

Cloud solutions also integrate seamlessly via APIs, requiring very few modifications or customisations, which makes it simpler to add new technologies as you grow (while still maintaining a lightweight setup).

Plus, with cloud-based software, your employees aren’t tethered to a workstation. Instead, they can work flexibly across your existing locations—and any new locations added as you enter new markets.

4 compelling reasons to move your food & beverage ERP to the cloud Learn

Change is Growth: GA Foods

For the 1 in 8 Americans classified as ‘food insecure,’ a nutritious meal is not always easy to come by.

GA Foods is trying to address this problem by providing frozen meal solutions to people in vulnerable or challenging circumstances. Its customers include healthcare, childcare and military organisations and it is a first-line meal provider for disaster relief efforts.

The company started as a single production facility in St. Petersburg, Florida, and has grown its operation throughout Florida and Georgia. However, in 2013 it became apparent that a significant modernisation effort would be required to continue this growth.

GA Foods invested in Aptean Food & Beverage ERP software to focus on serving people as efficiently, safely and cost-effectively as possible. Aptean responded to the company’s requirements by implementing a highly customised system in just eight months.

Since deploying Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, GA Foods’ revenue has grown by 90%.

Read GA Foods’ Story

“The technology has gotten out of the way, and it enables us to really focus on serving more people as efficiently and cost effectively and safely as possible. That’s our future.”

Andy Borgmann, Chief Technology Officer, GA Foods

Ingredient #5: Rigorous Quality Control

Reputations can fade just as fast as they grow, which is why it’s important for challenger brands to create high quality products, consistently.

Defects and recalls can significantly impact your profitability, making it harder to accelerate growth. Every decision you make—from ideation to distribution—impacts standards.

Integrating quality control (QC) processes into your workflows can help your brand to minimise spoilage, while delivering products that meet your customers’ expectations. And while most brands build QC checks into production, many forget to factor compliance into product ideation and packaging design.

Adopting a compliance-first approach to product development can help you to factor in necessary requirements for all your current and future markets. For example, allergen labelling protocols can vary from country to country.

Incorporating regulation early in the development process will help you to identify and resolve potential issues, ensuring products and their supporting documentation are compliant in every market.

What’s the Impact of a Product Quality Issue?

We’ve all seen the impact that quality control issues can have on a brand’s reputation—and how long it can take to recover.

A prime example is the 2013 horsemeat scandal in Europe. Consumer mistrust of products affected by the problem led to an immediate 43% drop in frozen burger sales and a 13% drop in frozen ready meal sales. A year later, 1 in 10 people still wouldn’t buy from affected brands—and many even remember the scandal 10 years on. It takes consumers a long time to forget a breach of their trust.

PLM, OEE and ERP: Quality Control Drivers

We’ve already spoken about the value PLM software can provide in getting good ideas to market quickly. It can also help challenger brands to ensure your products are of consistent quality and compliant with local legislation. From a regulatory perspective, PLM software stores product documentation electronically for a reliable audit trail, and it can even generate labels that adhere to regional legislation.

When new lines go into production, ERP software can ensure that localised recipes are executed correctly, using ingredients that are fit for purpose.

Quality controlling materials is a particularly challenging issue for brands that work with perishable ingredients. You don’t want to risk anything out of date making it into your products!

We’ve also mentioned how ERP software can help you move from a FIFO to a FEFO model, prioritising ingredients with the shortest shelf life.

You can extend this approach by building automated quality and compliance checks into your production process using ERP technology, triggering alerts in the event of a problem. And if the worst-case scenario happens and you suffer a quality control issue, ERP software gives you the traceability to identify affected batches and recall products quickly.

Finally, your company may also want to consider investing in OEE software. OEE creates truly digital records and processes, helping to ensure you’re using high quality real-time data.

Why your business needs food safety

Consistent Quality: Bearfields of London

For more than 100 years, the Bearfield family have been producing awardwinning traditional hams and gammons from its premises in East London. Using traditional curing methods, Bearfields processes and delivers more than 20,000 pork legs each week.

Historically, the company relied on paper documentation to manage quality assurance (QA). However, Bearfields modernised its IT system and moved to paperless operations, investing in Aptean Food & Beverage QA Management software.

Bearfields’ Operations Director, Neil Edwards, took a unique approach to securing buy-in: he printed off a week’s worth of QA paperwork and presented the mound at a board meeting.

“Seeing the scale of the problem and the opportunity for errors and wasted manpower made the decision to buy Aptean Food & Beverage QA Management very easy,” Neil shares.

Aptean software has given Bearfields 100% stock transparency and complete traceability. As a result, the company has much tighter control over quality assurance and has far less cash tied up in stock.

Read Bearfields of London’s Full Story

“Our QC department is able to set up quality checks at each step of the process, from cracking all the way to packaging.”

Neil Edwards, Operations Director, Bearfields of London

Ingredient #6: The Ability to Reach New Markets

As a fast-growing brand, you’re going to reach maturity on home turf. At this point you may turn your attention to a new territory.

The most successful challenger brands can quickly adapt their products for new markets without compromising on quality.

We’ve already touched on the importance of scalable systems, along with compliance considerations when selling to consumers in multiple markets. However, there are other elements to factor in when growing your brand.

You can’t work on the assumption that the same product will sell well in every market. Local regulations, cultures and tastes will affect customer interest—so you may need to reformulate recipes to achieve wider success.

You may also need to identify and coordinate new suppliers. The challenge is making sure that localised recipes can be executed efficiently and cost-effectively, or complex operations could impact your profit margin.

Brand Growth: Who’s Got a Good Success Story?

Here are some brands that have learned the importance of adapting products and processes for a wider audience:

› When British healthy snack company Graze first launched in the USA, it found some products—like mango chutney and its deconstructed Jaffa Cake snack—didn’t translate for an American audience

› When Dash Water expanded out of Europe into Australia, it decided to use locally sourced ingredients and aluminum cans to manufacture products cost-effectively and manage its carbon footprint

› After expanding from the USA into Canada, food industry redistributor Dot Foods, Inc. invested in a new distribution center in Ontario to locally manage its distribution model and create further expansion opportunities in Canada

One Solution for Every Variable

While new markets create additional revenue opportunities, any profit can be quickly wiped out if you’ve got to deploy new technologies to manage your operations. The most successful challenger brands use a central technology stack to underpin their growth strategy.

For example: if you’ve invested in cloud-based PLM technology, you’re well-placed to adapt recipes for local audiences while still managing product data holistically within a centralised operation. Striking this balance is key to widening consumer appeal without diluting your manufacturing processes.

Equally, if you’ve invested in food ERP software, you’ll already have a digital portal for managing suppliers. It’s simple to add vendors in new markets as your operation grows, particularly if that ERP system has multilingual and multicurrency functionality.

Plus, there are other operational technologies you may wish to consider when pursuing growth. For example, how will you manage transportation and shipping logistics as your operation expands?

Many successful challenger brands onboard a transportation management system to optimise routes and track shipments in realtime. Automating routing and scheduling operations will help you to monitor logistics and ensure deliveries reach your customers on time and in good condition, along with the correct documentation for crossborder fulfilment if you’re operating in multiple international markets.

Deep dive: advantages, risks and best practices for expansion

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Smart Distribution: George’s Inc.

Distribution can be complex for all food brands, but if your products need to be stored at a certain temperature it becomes even more challenging.

George’s Inc. is a premier farm-to-table supplier of fresh and frozen chicken products, distributing to over 250 quick service restaurants, retail and food service customers three times a week.

After a period of significant growth, George’s realised that it needed to optimise its distribution process to increase efficiency and manage fuel costs. It invested in Aptean Routing & Scheduling Paragon Edition software to eliminate the burden of manual planning and scheduling and bring greater flexibility to its fulfilment capabilities.

Since onboarding Aptean Routing & Scheduling Paragon Edition, George’s Inc has:

› Saved over $30,000 in annual fuel costs

› Reduced its fleet size by 10% while maintaining customer service levels

› Decreased road miles by 5%

› Cut out 6 hours of data entry and administration time every week

Read George’s Inc.’s Full Story

Ingredient #7: An Ongoing Commitment to Innovation

It’s easy to start a challenger brand, but much more difficult to retain your challenger reputation as you grow more successful. Many market disruptors become complacent as they scale and end up losing ground to newer competitors with fresher ideas.

To hold onto that challenger brand mentality and launch products that surprise and delight your customers, your company must commit to continuous innovation.

Speed is critical to constantly challenging the status quo; there’s no point discovering the ‘next big thing’ in food and beverage if it takes so long to develop and launch it that the market is flooded with copycat products.

E qually, being able to identify when an existing product has reached its apex will help you to transition to new ideas that capitalise on emerging sales opportunities, allowing you to reallocate resources from a product that’s in decline.

Constant Innovation: Who’s Got Their Eye on the Next Big Idea?

Here are some brands that have grown quickly without losing their innovative edge:

› Baby food company Ella’s Kitchen has grown from market challenger to category leader, without taking its foot off the gas. The company increased revenue by 18% in 2022-23 and is expanding its range further by developing a range of snacks for children aged 3+.

› Huel has transformed the market for meal replacement drinks, hitting £100 million sales in just six years. However, it’s innovated beyond protein powders, launching new products including pre-mixed drinks, vegan ready meals and snack bars to increase its market share.

“Creativity is critical in growth phases – you need constant reinvention.”

James McMaster, CEO, Huel

PLM: Partnering Your Brand Throughout the Product Lifecycle

We’ve discussed the role PLM software plays in supporting rapid and well-targeted product development. We’ve also shared its value as a communications platform, creating structured workflows to underpin the creative process.

While these features can help you get new products to market quickly, creating an environment of continuous innovation, PLM technology can also help you manage goods when demand peaks.

Challenger brands can use the data being generated by your PLM and ERP systems to track product demand, downscaling production as sales decline—so you can dedicate resources to developing more good ideas.

Understanding the full lifecycle of food and beverage products Learn

Sustainable Innovation: DS Smith

DS Smith is a multinational packaging manufacturer with operations across Europe, North America and Asia. Founded in 1940, the company is committed to state-of-the-art packaging design for clients spanning multiple industries.

After realising the limitations of its legacy IT architecture built in the 1980s, DS Smith invested in Aptean PLM Lascom Edition software to configure product development to its customers’ needs.

This investment was clearly worthwhile: DS Smith now operates in more than 30 countries, employs 30,000 staff and turned over more than £850 million in the 2022/23 financial year.

Read DS Smith’s Full Story

The Recipe for Rapid, Efficient Brand Growth

Ingredients:

A great product idea

Trusted suppliers

Automated manufacturing processes

A scalable operational model

Consistent quality control

The ability to adapt products and pack aging for local markets

Continued commitment to innovation

Equipment:

» PLM software

» ERP software

» OEE software

» EAM software

» Routing & scheduling software

» Industry-specific food and beverage solutions work best

Method:

1. Assemble your most creative team and give them the structure to develop innovative ideas that meet your product brief—you’ll need your PLM software for this part

2. Prototype your product using ingredients from your network of trusted suppliers

3. Use your ERP software to develop production processes that are easily scalable without compromising on product quality—you may wish to use your OEE and EAM software at this stage to ensure manufacturing reliability

4. Identify wider market opportunities to increase sales, returning to your PLM software to adapt products for local consumers

5. Manage products through their lifecycle, transferring resources to new ideas when demand for your existing products has peaked

Aptean: Your Single Vendor for Food & Beverage Software

Aptean specialises in empowering food and beverage manufacturers, producers and distributors with a strong technological foundation and “single source of truth” to get Ready for What’s Next, Now®. Our software suite helps food brands to grow your business by disrupting markets and challenging the status quo.

Our award-winning solutions include Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, winner of Frost & Sullivan’s Customer Value Leadership Award.

With decades of collective industry experience, our dedicated professionals “speak your language” and understand the specific challenges that food and beverage companies like yours face, as well as how to best overcome them and succeed in a dynamic marketplace.

Aptean is one of the world’s leading providers of purpose-built, industry-specific software that helps manufacturers and distributors effectively run and grow their businesses. With both cloud and on-premises deployment options,

services and unmatched expertise help businesses of all sizes to be Ready for What’s Next, Now®. Aptean is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia and has offices in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To learn more about Aptean and the markets we serve, visit www.aptean.com.