The Food & Beverage (F&B) industry is undergoing significant transformation backed by the robust capabilities of AI-powered solutions. Gen AI streamlines operations, manages supply chains, and enhances customer experiences – by benefitting from historical data, identifying changes in real time, and drafting contingency plans for hypothetical scenarios to come.

Infor AI, embedded within Infor CloudSuite, is leading this shift by boosting productivity, enabling data-driven decision-making, and ensuring flexibility in navigating the changing markets of today and tomorrow.

Unlike generic AI solutions, Infor GenAI is trained on vast F&B-specific datasets, equipping it with the ability to address unique industry challenges from fluctuating consumer demand to food safety regulations. By grounding AI models in real-world operational data, businesses gain highly accurate insights tailored to their needs.

This blog will explore the benefits food and beverage businesses are gaining from Infor AI with success stories from the industry and point to other aspects of your business that can benefit from this technology.

All-round impacts

AI-powered efficiency is driving paradigm shifts across all aspects of the F&B sector, from production to customer engagement.

• Optimizing supply chains: AI-driven tools enhance logistics by forecasting demand fluctuations, minimizing waste, and ensuring optimal stock levels. It also assists in predicting raw material shortages due to external factors like climate change and geopolitical tensions.
  
  A leading, global provider of goat and organic cow cheese, integrated Infor AI to analyze real-time data on milk yield deviations, as milk production can be heavily influenced by climatic conditions affecting animal well-being. This allowed factory operators to optimize production immediately, increasing yield efficiency and saving approximately €500,000 for every 1% improvement. These savings are reinvested into the business, strengthening supply chain resilience.
   
• Enhancing customer experience: AI-powered ordering systems, such as the Infor GenAI Assistant, streamline order processing and provide personalized product recommendations based on purchase history, improving customer satisfaction.
  
  A global bakery ingredients company previously relied on time-consuming manual sales processes. By implementing Infor AI’s Product Recommender, the company reduced the time taken to prepare customer recommendations by 83%. This enhancement not only improved customer engagement but also increased revenue per transaction and streamlined sales operations.

• Supporting sustainability: AI minimizes overproduction and excess inventory by precisely analyzing demand patterns, ensuring businesses do not fail to consider environmental regulations when improving profitability.
  
  The afore-mentioned provider of goat and organic cow cheese has significantly improved its sustainability efforts by leveraging Infor AI’s advanced analytics. Through AI-driven real-time monitoring, the company can detect deviations in milk yield at a granular level, allowing for immediate adjustments in production. This precision ensures that raw milk is utilized more efficiently, reducing unnecessary waste while maintaining high product quality.

• Ensuring safety and compliance: AI can generate automated quality control checklists, monitor production in real-time, and quickly identify deviations from safety standards, reducing the risk of contamination and regulatory violations. With Infor AI’s compliance monitoring, the provider of goat and organic cow cheese is now able to immediately detect inconsistencies in cheese batches, ensuring regulatory compliance and improving batch traceability for rapid safety responses.

The integration of AI across procurement, production, and distribution not only enhances efficiency but also safeguards businesses against market volatility. Companies that invest in Gen AI gain a strategic edge, by using predictive analytics to anticipate supply chain disruptions and guide operations in real time. This proactive approach contrasts sharply with outdated manual processes that leave businesses vulnerable in multiple unplanned scenarios – from raw material shortages to rapidly changing regulatory requirements.

Diving deeper into Infor AI’s capabilities

In an industry that operates on a multinational scale and where consumer safety is a must, F&B businesses face numerous challenges, where AI proves to be indispensable.

• Inventory management: In an industry marked by perishable products which require precise inventory control, AI-powered demand forecasting tools, such as Infor Augmented Intelligence Service, help businesses anticipate demand, adjust production, and minimize overstocking.
  
  In tandem with predictive analytics, companies can use demand forecasting tools to create novel products in response to viral trends that are aimed at select audiences. This can improve customer engagement and companies can rest assured that overstocking is minimized by adjusting production quotas to account for the decline in popularity of a trend over time.Leveraging AI for customer data analysis also helps businesses craft personalized marketing campaigns. By understanding purchasing behaviors, seasonal trends, and customer preferences, F&B brands can increase customer retention and further improve overall sales performance.
   
• Predictive maintenance: Beyond production optimization, Infor AI helps predict equipment failures before they occur. This minimizes unplanned downtime, reduces maintenance costs, and ensures smooth production workflows. F&B manufacturers can schedule proactive maintenance of their equipment, extending equipment life and improving operational efficiency.

• Recipe optimization: In recipe optimization, Gen AI evaluates ingredient costs, nutritional contributions, and target constraints, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards while maintaining quality. The AI platform allows food scientists to adjust parameters dynamically, balancing factors such as taste, texture, and sustainability goals.
  
  For example, the AI model optimizes the use of raw milk components, such as whey and cream, to enhance overall yield while reducing waste. This level of precision has allowed the provider of goat and organic cow cheese to increase production capacity and invest in product innovation, such as its own bespoke formula, without compromising quality.
   
• Competitive pricing: AI-driven pricing analysis ensures businesses remain competitive by dynamically adjusting pricing based on real-time market data, improving revenue optimization.
  
  The global bakery ingredients company which was referred to in the previous section operates in over 30 countries. It initially faced major procurement challenges due to fluctuating raw material costs. Their outdated spreadsheet-driven pricing system was replaced by Infor AI’s intelligent pricing recommendations, enabling dynamic price adjustments based on live market conditions. This shift resulted in better supplier negotiations, improved cost efficiency, and increased customer satisfaction.

In an industry driven by fluctuating consumer preferences and regulatory scrutiny, businesses that neglect AI risk falling behind competitors benefitting from the versatility of intelligent automation. Companies resistant to AI adoption may struggle with higher operational costs and compliance risks that could lead to costly penalties or reputational damage.

Matching security with compliance

In the digital environments of today and tomorrow, security is never a compromise. Infor GenAI is built on the Infor OS platform and powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), ensuring enterprise-level security, regulatory compliance, and robust data protection. Data privacy and protection are guaranteed through built-in end-to-end encryption, role-based access control, and cloud security infrastructure. Infor GenAI safeguards business-critical information while ensuring compliance with industry standards such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDD) requirements.

AI-enabled risk mitigation is backed by predictive analytics to assess potential risks in the supply chain, identifying vulnerabilities in ingredient sourcing, transportation, and storage. Scalable and customizable AI solutions allow businesses to tailor AI-driven compliance strategies to their unique requirements, ensuring seamless adaptation to evolving regulations and industry best practices.

In conclusion, the transformative power of Infor AI in the F&B industry goes beyond simple automation—it redefines how businesses optimize supply chains, ensure compliance, and enhance customer experiences. Additionally, AI-powered sustainability initiatives help organizations minimize food waste and improve environmental impact, ensuring long-term viability in a rapidly evolving industry. The future of F&B is not just automated—it is intelligent, adaptive, and data-driven.

Fortude will be a Platinum Sponsor at the M3UGA Spring User Group Meeting, March 17-19, 2025. Join us for insights on automation, AI, and hear firsthand how Fortude drove Master Fluid Solutions' digital transformation journey.