MATERIALS HANDLING
Ben Beattie, Director of Forbeats, examines the challenges faced by UK food manufacturers and explains how toll processors provide the safety, agility, experience and capacity to overcome disruption and help meet deadlines.
A CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT The UK’s food and beverage industry faces a range of disruptive challenges that threaten its ability to deliver orders within agreed timescales. The Russia-Ukraine war, attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and increasing incidents of extreme climate events have led to shortages and delays of ingredients and packaging materials, reduced road haulage capacity, impacted supply routes and increased the costs of goods and transport. Brexit, meanwhile, has left the UK with a
shortage of skilled labour, delays at border controls and a raft of import and export regulations, such as UK REACH, Sanitary and Phytosanitary checks and Export Health additional bureaucracy and costs. Now also facing uncertainty about the
potential impact of trade tariffs, achieving order deadlines can be increasingly challenging for manufacturers and a problem that could leave end users facing emptier shelves and fewer choices in supermarkets.
COUNTERING THE CHALLENGES Toll processing offers food and beverage manufacturers an effective way to counter the delays, shortages and bottlenecks caused by disruption. A highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce, combined with decades of expertise,
SOLVING DISRUPTION FOR THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRY
Delays, shortages and bottlenecks resulting from market disruption can stifle operations for food and beverage manufacturers.
enables manufacturers to overcome knowledge gaps, whilst also providing the capabilities to carry out a spectrum of processing requirements. This also includes custom formula production, multi-ingredient formula blending, powder blending, as well as liquid blending. With regard to overcoming bottlenecks and meeting deadlines, toll processors have the agility to instigate production quickly and can operate autonomously, delivering low-waste, and robustly quality controlled. Experienced providers also offer a wide range of varied services, covering warehousing and logistics, import and export clearance, paperwork completion, batch traceability, labelling also custom packing and repacking. With toll processors offering such an array of services for either one-time or repeat
36 MAY 2025 | FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS
operations, and not only in the UK, but at an international level, manufacturers have access to a true end-to-end, tailored solution that alleviates chokepoints and ensures deadlines are met. Moreover, these partnerships also streamline the outsourcing process, with a single provider taking responsibility, which not only cuts in-house administration, but can
REGULATION AND SAFETY As safety is a major priority for the food and beverage industry, manufacturers understandably have concerns about working with outsourced contractors. However, experienced toll processors rigidly comply with regulations and standards with some even holding ISO9001 accreditation and a thorough, up-to-date understanding of food handling regulations. They will have the expertise to
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