Centric PLM for Food & Beverage and Grocery Tackle Tariffs Head-On

Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, formulate, develop, procure, manufacture and sell consumer goods products in food & beverage, grocery, fashion and multi-category retail to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

With the recent burst of tariff activity, food & beverage companies and grocery retailers are faced with widely fluctuating ingredient costs. Changes in regulations are happening day-by-day and consumer response is also factoring into sales, so there is no time for consultation and lengthy analyses; response to tariffs must be reactive and swift.

Real-time access to data becomes crucial in today’s circumstances. A modern PLM solution has modules that can facilitate agile product development, enabling companies to quickly adapt to market changes. By streamlining collaboration and workflow processes, food & beverage and grocery companies can revamp their offerings or develop new products that cater to evolving consumer demands and benefit from AI-functionalities like least cost formulation to protect margins. Agility is necessary for maintaining market relevance amid shifting market conditions.

With Centric PLM, companies can evaluate and compare suppliers, simulate costing scenarios, adjust landed cost calculations, support multi-sourcing strategies and facilitate quick supplier revision requests. With AI formula matching, developers get a head start in formulating the next new product. Centric PLM also manages packaging: from briefs, to specifications to artwork and labeling. Ingredient and nutrition label information is pulled directly from PLM into packaging, eliminating the chance for error when transferring data manually between systems.

To improve consumer experience across all touchpoints, Centric PXMTM, Centric product experience management, combines product information management (PIM), digital asset management (DAM), content syndication to e-comm sites, marketplaces and social media and digital shelf analytics (DSA). It captures demand signals from digital sales channels and shows consumer behavior in real-time, creating a continuous feedback loop, so brands can quickly adjust products, pricing and inventory to personalize customer experiences and increase sell-through in response to whatever the current conditions are.
Traditional ways of managing tariffs, often siloed within finance or sourcing teams no longer provide the visibility or speed businesses need to stay competitive. Navigating tariffs involves more than understanding costs; it also requires compliance with evolving international trade regulations. Non-compliance can lead to penalties and operational disruptions. Being aware of the latest regulatory changes through a comprehensive tech platform is key. Centric PLM integrates with regulatory databases like USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy and CIQUAL. A partnership with the global regulatory and food safety service provider FoodChain ID, provides users with access to 220 global regulatory libraries.

“Completely market-driven, the breadth of Centric Software’s AI-powered technology solutions covers the end-to-end product lifecycle,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “Centric solutions, including PLM and PXM, provide robustness to food companies whose ingredients often hail from all corners of the globe. During times of economic volatility, Centric solutions equip food & beverage producers and retailers, including grocery which is often a diverse range of consumer goods products, to better handle market and supply chain disruptions.”