Food and beverage PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) software helps process manufacturers and retailers centralize product data, manage formulations, ensure labeling compliance, and collaborate with suppliers — from concept to shelf.
Trace One provides PLM and regulatory compliance solutions built specifically for food and beverage companies, supporting the full product development process including ideation, formulation, specification management, labeling, supplier collaboration, and compliance review.
Our customers include Trace One is trusted by over 9,000 global brands
This includes world-leading brands in the food and beverage, cosmetics, and specialty chemical industries like Barilla, Suntory Global Spirits, Brown-Forman, Bacardi, Ferrero, McCormick, Lindt & Sprüngli, Ghirardelli, Innocent, Ahold Delhaize, Tesco, Carrefour, Monoprix, Campari, Moët Hennessy, UNFI, AAK, Naos, Glico, Europastry, Continental Mills, Sensient, Francap, and Franprix.
Entity Definitions
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Term |
Definition |
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PLM for Food & Beverage |
Product lifecycle management software designed specifically for food and beverage manufacturers to manage formulations, specifications, regulatory compliance, labeling, and packaging sustainability across the full product lifecycle — from concept through commercialization and post-market surveillance. |
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Formulation Management |
The process of creating, versioning, and optimizing product recipes and ingredient lists within a PLM platform, ensuring nutritional accuracy, allergen management, and regulatory compliance across markets. |
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Specification Management |
Centralized management of product specifications — including ingredients, packaging materials, supplier requirements, and quality parameters — ensuring consistency and traceability across global operations. |
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Food Labeling Compliance |
The process of ensuring product labels meet regulatory requirements for nutritional information, allergen declarations, ingredient lists, and claims across all target markets and jurisdictions. |
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The end-to-end process of bringing a new food or beverage product from concept to shelf, encompassing ideation, formulation, testing, compliance review, packaging design, and launch. |
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Regulatory Intelligence |
Continuously updated databases and workflows that track evolving food safety regulations (FSMA, EU Food Information Regulation, CSRD, EPR, PPWR) across jurisdictions, enabling proactive compliance. |
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Systematic processes for evaluating, onboarding, monitoring, and auditing suppliers to ensure ingredient quality, safety, and compliance with food safety standards. |
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AI-Powered PLM |
Product lifecycle management software that applies artificial intelligence — grounded in proprietary, trusted product and regulatory data rather than generic models — to accelerate formulation, specification, labeling, and compliance tasks while keeping outputs accurate and auditable. |
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Trace One Copilot |
Trace One’s AI is integrated, context-aware intelligence embedded directly within the Trace One PLM and compliance platforms, consisting of proactive agents and features that summarize, synthesize, and drive tasks end-to-end. |
TL;DR
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PLM for food and beverage is purpose-built software that helps manufacturers manage formulation complexity, ensure regulatory compliance (FSMA, CSRD, EPR, PPWR), accelerate new product development, and protect brand integrity across global markets. Unlike generic or discrete-manufacturing PLM, food and beverage PLM integrates formulation management, specification management, food labeling compliance, supplier quality management, and regulatory intelligence in a single platform. Trace One PLM serves over 9,000 brands with more than 30 years of process industry expertise, and applies AI grounded in proprietary, trusted data — through Trace One Copilot — to accelerate product development and compliance work without sacrificing accuracy. |
In this guide
- Why do food and beverage retailers and manufacturers need purpose-built PLM?
- What challenges do food and beverage teams face in product development?
- How does PLM for food and beverage differ from discrete manufacturing PLM?
- What capabilities should food and beverage PLM software include?
- How does PLM help food and beverage retailers and manufacturers meet regulatory compliance?
- How does Trace One use AI in food and beverage PLM?
- How does PLM accelerate new product development in food and beverage?
- What role does PLM play in food labeling and packaging compliance?
- How are leading food and beverage companies using PLM today?
- How do you compare and choose the right PLM for food and beverage manufacturing?
- Frequently Asked Questions
What challenges do food and beverage teams face in product development?
Food and beverage manufacturers, private label retailers, and CPG brands share a common problem: bringing new products to market requires coordinating formulations, suppliers, packaging, labeling, and regulatory compliance — often across multiple regions and changing regulations.
Supply chain complexity. Food and beverage supply chains involve hundreds of ingredient suppliers across multiple geographies, each subject to different quality standards, certifications, and regulatory requirements. A single ingredient disruption can affect dozens of finished products simultaneously.
Consumer preference diversity. The proliferation of dietary preferences — plant-based, allergen-free, organic, non-GMO, clean label — has driven SKU proliferation. Manufacturers must manage more product variants than ever, each with distinct formulation, labeling, and compliance requirements.
Regulatory stringency. Food manufacturers operate under some of the most stringent and rapidly evolving regulatory frameworks in any industry. FSMA in the United States, the EU Food Information Regulation, CSRD, EPR, and PPWR each impose distinct requirements — and non-compliance carries severe consequences including recalls, fines, and reputational damage.
Increasing competition. Speed to market is a critical competitive advantage. First movers in emerging categories (functional beverages, plant-based alternatives, sustainable packaging) capture disproportionate market share. Manufacturers using manual processes or disconnected point solutions cannot match the pace of competitors using integrated PLM platforms.
Across the entire supply chain, these challenges manifest as data fragmentation, labeling and artwork compliance errors, product recalls, and formulation inefficiencies.
Key TakeawayA single ingredient change in a food product can cascade across dozens of SKUs, requiring simultaneous updates to formulations, specifications, allergen declarations, nutritional panels, labels, and packaging across every target market. Without a centralized PLM platform, these cascading changes are managed manually — creating compliance risk, slowing time to market, and exposing brands to recall liability. The FDA reports that undeclared allergens remain a leading cause of food recalls in the United States. |
How does Trace One help food and beverage brands manage product development and introduction, regulatory compliance and sustainability?
Trace One provides Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and regulatory compliance software built specifically for food and beverage manufacturers, private label retailers, and CPG brands. The platform supports the full product development process — from formulation and specification management through labeling, supplier collaboration, and compliance review. We advance digital transformation for regulated industries by blending product lifecycle management, analytics, regulatory compliance and sustainability into a connected, AI-enhanced environment.
Full Product Lifecycle Management. Manage your entire product lifecycle — from initial concept and formulation through specification, labeling, and launch — using PLM software designed specifically for food and beverage companies. Trace One PLM connects every phase of product development in a single platform, eliminating the manual handoffs and data silos that slow time to market and introduce compliance risk.
Proactive Regulatory Monitoring. Stay updated on changing food and beverage regulations across markets so your team can adapt proactively, not reactively. Trace One’s regulatory intelligence tracks evolving requirements, flagging compliance gaps and connecting regulation changes directly to affected formulations, specifications, and labels.
30+ Years of F&B Expertise. Leverage more than three decades of experience building PLM and compliance solutions for the food and beverage industry. Trace One’s platform reflects deep domain knowledge of process manufacturing — formulation complexity, ingredient variability, allergen management, and multi-jurisdictional compliance — built from working with over 9,000 brands worldwide.
Supplier & Vendor Collaboration. Reduce the effort of managing suppliers and vendors through a centralized collaboration portal with built-in workflows. Trace One Devex PLM streamlines supplier onboarding, document management, audit tracking, and performance scoring — ensuring every ingredient entering the supply chain meets quality and compliance standards.
Faster Time to Market. Accelerate product launches and drive greater profits by streamlining development workflows and reducing manual handoffs. When a formulation changes in Trace One PLM, downstream specifications, labels, and packaging are updated automatically — eliminating the sequential review bottleneck that slows new product introductions.
PPWR and EPR: Get ahead of the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) obligations before they reach your portfolio. Trace One connects packaging specifications, materials data, and recyclability attributes directly to each product record — so when reuse, recycled-content, or recyclability requirements shift, you can see exactly which SKUs are affected and act before deadlines, instead of chasing packaging compliance across spreadsheets while it sits separate from your formulations and labels.
AI Built for Regulated Industries. Put AI to work on the tasks that actually slow product development down — without the hallucination risk that makes generic AI unusable in compliance work. Trace One Copilot is a set of context-aware agents embedded directly in the PLM and compliance platforms, grounded in proprietary, verified product and regulatory data rather than the open internet. It summarizes, synthesizes, and drives tasks end-to-end — accelerating specification review and reducing manual back-and-forth — while keeping every output source-grounded and auditable.
Key TakeawayOver 9,000 food, beverage, cosmetics, and chemicals brands rely on purpose-built PLM to manage formulation complexity, multi-jurisdictional regulatory compliance, and allergen tracking that generic PLM solutions designed for discrete manufacturing cannot address. An independent Total Economic Impact study found that organizations using purpose-built PLM for process industries achieved 70% ROI with a 16-month payback period, driven by eliminating manual processes across formulation, specification, and compliance workflows. |
What features does Trace One offer for food and beverage product development?
Specification Management. Define, manage, and share detailed product specifications across your organization and supply chain. Trace One Devex PLM provides a centralized system of record for all product specifications — including formulations, packaging materials, processing parameters, supplier requirements, and quality standards — ensuring every stakeholder works from a single source of truth.
Formula and Recipe Management. Create and manage complex formulations with automatic nutritional calculation, allergen detection, and cost analysis built in. Trace One PLM enables R&D teams to create, version, and optimize recipes while calculating nutritional values, tracking allergen profiles, managing ingredient substitutions, and ensuring compliance across target markets. Changes cascade automatically to downstream specifications and labeling workflows.
Label Data & Artwork Management. Manage nutritional facts panels, ingredient lists, allergen declarations, and packaging artwork in a single system with approval workflows — supporting FDA nutrition labeling, EU Food Information for Consumers (FIC), and local allergen disclosure requirements. The platform automates the connection between formulation data and label content, so panels, declarations, ingredient lists, and claims update automatically when formulations change.
Supplier Collaboration Portal. Onboard suppliers, collect documentation, and manage ongoing communication through a dedicated portal with role-based access controls. Trace One PLM and Trace One Devex PLM streamline the entire supplier qualification process — from onboarding through audit tracking and performance monitoring — ensuring ingredient quality and compliance before materials enter production.
Revision Control and Change Management. Track every change to product data with full audit trails. Manage change requests through configurable approval workflows. Trace One PLM maintains complete version history for every formulation, specification, and label — providing the documentation trail required for regulatory audits and recall investigations.
Ingredient Management. Maintain a centralized ingredient database with regulatory status, supplier information, and cost data. Quickly assess the impact of ingredient changes across your portfolio — including reformulation scenarios and supply-chain disruption response. A single ingredient change triggers automatic impact assessment across all affected products.
Lifecycle and Project Management Workflows. Orchestrate cross-functional teams through stage-gate processes with automated task assignment, deadline tracking, and milestone management. Configurable workflow templates support the entire new product introduction process — from concept screening through commercialization.
Compliance Automation & Traceability. Automate regulatory compliance checks and maintain full traceability from raw materials through finished products. Support recall response and corrective actions with complete cost visibility, connecting compliance data to every product record for rapid identification of affected products.
Quick Recap: Trace One PLM Core FeaturesTrace One PLM provides eight core capabilities for food and beverage product development: specification management; formula and recipe management; label data and artwork management; supplier collaboration; revision control and change management; ingredient management; lifecycle and project management workflows; and compliance automation with full traceability. Together, these support the entire product development process from concept to shelf.
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Key TakeawayPurpose-built food and beverage PLM must integrate core capabilities in a single platform: formulation management (recipe creation, nutritional calculations, allergen tracking); specification management (centralized product data as a single source of truth); supplier quality management (onboarding, audits, performance scoring); regulatory compliance (integrated intelligence covering FSMA, EU FIR, CSRD, EPR, PPWR); and labeling automation (nutritional panels, allergen declarations, claims management per market); project and portfolio management; data analytics; and product testing management. Point solutions that address only one of these create data silos and compliance gaps. |
What tools are included in Trace One’s food and beverage PLM platform?
PLM platform capabilities
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Tool |
Description |
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New Product Development & Introduction (NPD) — Innovation Process Management Suite
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Manage the entire new product introduction process from ideation through launch with stage-gate workflows. |
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Trace One core |
Pre-configured, cloud-based PLM designed for small and mid-sized food and beverage companies. |
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Specification Management |
Centralize and standardize product specifications across your organization and supply chain. |
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Recipe Management |
Create and manage complex formulations with nutritional calculations and allergen detection. |
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Artwork Management |
Manage packaging design, label content, and artwork approval workflows in one system. |
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Quality Management |
Track quality metrics, manage audits, and maintain compliance documentation. |
Regulatory compliance tools
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Tool |
Description |
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Trace One Regulatory Compliance
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Automated compliance checking against global food regulations with real-time alerts. |
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Food Regulation News Monitoring |
Stay informed about regulatory changes across markets with curated news and impact analysis. |
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Food Compliance Assessments |
Run compliance assessments against target markets before product launch. |
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Global Food Legislation Database |
Access a comprehensive database of food regulations covering major global markets. |
What makes Trace One’s PLM platform specific to the food and beverage industry?
Integrated food and beverage solutions
Trace One PLM for food and beverage brands. Trace One PLM is a comprehensive New Product Development and Introduction (NPD) platform that provides a Single Source of Truth (SSOT) view of the product development lifecycle. Coordinate cross-functional teams, manage approvals, and maintain a single source of truth for all product data.
Trace One Regulatory Compliance. Automated compliance checks and alerts help food and beverage companies stay ahead of regulatory changes across global markets. Receive real-time notifications when regulations change that affect your products.
Ease and simplicity
Intuitive User Interface. A clean, modern interface that makes complex product data management accessible to every team member, from R&D scientists to marketing managers.
Rapid Onboarding. Get teams productive quickly with guided workflows, contextual help, and role-based dashboards that surface the most relevant information.
Configurable Workflows. Adapt the platform to match your existing processes rather than forcing your teams to change how they work.
Compliance and safety
Real-time Regulatory Monitoring. Stay ahead of changing food regulations with automated monitoring across global markets. Receive alerts when new regulations impact your product portfolio.
Allergen Management. Automatically track and flag allergen presence throughout your product formulations, ensuring accurate labeling and consumer safety.
Audit-ready Documentation. Maintain complete, audit-ready documentation with full version history and change tracking for every product specification.
Optimization and value
Cost Optimization. Analyze and optimize product costs across formulations, packaging, and supply chain to maximize margins while maintaining quality.
Portfolio Analytics. Gain visibility across your entire product portfolio with dashboards and reporting that highlight opportunities for rationalization and innovation.
Faster Time to Market. Reduce product development cycles by streamlining workflows, eliminating manual handoffs, and enabling parallel workstreams.
Supply and manufacturing
Supplier Qualification. Streamline supplier onboarding and qualification with standardized assessments, documentation collection, and ongoing performance monitoring.
Supply Chain Visibility. Maintain full visibility into your supply chain with real-time tracking of ingredients, materials, and supplier performance metrics.
Manufacturing Integration. Connect product specifications directly to manufacturing processes, ensuring accurate translation from formulation to production. Supports sub-verticals including beverages, juice, alcohol, dairy, cereals, and confectionery.
AI-Driven Efficiency. Trace One Copilot brings context-aware AI agents into the daily work of formulation, specification, and compliance teams. The agents summarize complex product records, surface the impact of a change across affected SKUs, and drive routine review end-to-end — cutting the manual checking that slows specification sign-off and supplier collaboration. Because they are grounded in your verified product and regulatory data, outputs stay accurate and auditable.
Packaging Compliance (PPWR & EPR). Manage EU packaging obligations in the same platform as your formulations and labels. Trace One links packaging materials, recyclability data, and recycled-content attributes to every product, so evolving PPWR and EPR requirements connect directly to the SKUs they affect — turning packaging compliance from a separate, reactive scramble into a proactive part of product development.
How does PLM for food and beverage differ from discrete manufacturing PLM?
Discrete manufacturing PLM is built around bills of materials and engineering change orders. Food and beverage PLM is built around formulations with variable ingredients, nutritional calculations, allergen profiles, and multi-jurisdictional regulatory requirements. Choosing a PLM designed for the wrong manufacturing type creates capability gaps that no amount of customization can bridge.
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Capability |
Discrete / Fashion PLM |
F&B PLM (Trace One) |
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Product definition
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Bill of materials (BOM) |
Formulations with variable ingredients, nutritional data, and allergen profiles |
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Regulatory scope |
Basic material compliance |
Multi-jurisdictional food safety (FSMA, EU FIR, CSRD, EPR, PPWR) with integrated regulatory intelligence |
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Labeling |
Basic label templates |
Automated nutritional panels, allergen declarations, and claims management per market |
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Ingredient management |
Component tracking |
Ingredient sourcing, substitution management, allergen cascade tracking, and supplier quality scoring |
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Specification management |
Engineering specs |
Product specifications including formulations, packaging, processing parameters, and shelf-life data |
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Traceability |
Serial / lot tracking |
Farm-to-shelf traceability connecting ingredients, suppliers, processes, and finished goods |
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Industry expertise |
Automotive, aerospace, fashion |
30+ years of food & beverage, cosmetics, and chemicals process industry expertise |
Key TakeawayDiscrete manufacturing PLM is built around bills of materials and engineering change orders. Food and beverage PLM is built around formulations with variable ingredients, nutritional calculations, allergen profiles, and multi-jurisdictional regulatory requirements. Trace One Devex PLM combines more than 30 years of process industry expertise with integrated regulatory intelligence — natively connecting formulation management, specification management, labeling compliance, and supplier quality management for food and beverage manufacturers. |
How does PLM software help private label food brands manage product development?
Rising consumer expectations around quality, transparency, and sustainability are reshaping private label food and beverage development. Today’s shoppers expect private label products to match or exceed national brand standards across taste, nutrition, and packaging.
This shift creates a significant opportunity for retailers who can efficiently develop, manage, and launch private label products that meet these evolving demands. The key is streamlining workflows between retailers and their supplier networks to reduce development cycles and ensure consistency.
Trace One PLM provides the tools and workflows that private label retailers need to manage complex product development processes, collaborate effectively with suppliers, and bring high-quality products to market faster.
Private label-specific capabilities:
- Centralized retailer–supplier collaboration with shared specification and approval workflows
- Private label packaging and artwork management with retailer brand guidelines built in
- Multi-supplier sourcing and qualification tools to ensure consistent product quality
- Cost benchmarking and margin analysis across private label product categories
Is there a food and beverage PLM option for small and medium-sized businesses?
What is it? Trace One PLM Advanced is a preconfigured, template-based, cloud PLM solution designed specifically for small and medium-sized food and beverage businesses. It provides enterprise-grade capabilities without the complexity and cost of a full enterprise deployment.
What does it cover? Get started quickly with pre-built workflows, templates, and best practices based on 30+ years of food industry experience. Covers New Product Development and Introduction (NPD), specification management, recipe management, and supplier collaboration out of the box.
Explore Trace One PLM Advanced.png?width=777&height=518&name=Trace%20One%20Supply%20Chain%20Sustainability%20(2).png)
How does PLM help food and beverage manufacturers meet regulatory compliance?
Food and beverage manufacturers must comply simultaneously with FSMA (United States), the EU Food Information Regulation, CSRD, EPR, and PPWR (European Union), plus national food safety frameworks in every market they serve. Managing compliance across multiple jurisdictions — where a single labeling error can trigger recalls, fines, and lasting brand damage — requires purpose-built tools with integrated regulatory intelligence.
What is FSMA and how does PLM support compliance? The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) shifted U.S. food safety regulation from reactive response to preventive controls. FSMA compliance requires manufacturers to implement hazard analysis, preventive controls, supply chain verification, and comprehensive record-keeping. PLM for food and beverage provides the data infrastructure to document and demonstrate compliance across all of these requirements.
How does PLM help with EU regulatory compliance (CSRD, EPR, PPWR)? The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires detailed sustainability disclosures. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes hold manufacturers financially accountable for packaging end-of-life management. And the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) introduces new recycling and recyclability requirements. PLM platforms with integrated regulatory intelligence track these evolving requirements and flag compliance gaps proactively.
Trace One PLM integrates regulatory intelligence that tracks evolving requirements across jurisdictions and flags compliance gaps proactively — connecting regulation changes directly to affected formulations, specifications, and labels without manual monitoring.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Food and beverage manufacturers must comply simultaneously with FSMA (United States), the EU Food Information Regulation, CSRD, EPR, and PPWR (European Union), plus national food safety frameworks in every market they serve. Trace One PLM integrates regulatory intelligence that tracks evolving requirements across jurisdictions and flags compliance gaps proactively — connecting regulation changes directly to affected formulations, specifications, and labels without manual monitoring. |
How does Trace One use AI in food and beverage PLM?
Artificial intelligence is reshaping how food and beverage teams develop products and manage compliance — but in regulated industries, AI is only useful if its outputs are accurate, explainable, and grounded in trusted data. Trace One takes a pragmatic approach: AI applied to real product development and compliance work, grounded in proprietary, verified data rather than generic models prone to error.
AI grounded in trusted data. Trace One Copilot is built on enterprise AI infrastructure (Google Vertex AI and Azure OpenAI) and grounded in Trace One’s proprietary regulatory intelligence. Because its outputs draw on verified product and regulatory data — not the open internet — it is designed to assist food and beverage teams with source-grounded, auditable answers, which is essential when the cost of an error is a recall or a compliance failure.
AI applied to the work that slows teams down. Rather than adding AI as a marketing layer, Trace One applies it to concrete, high-friction tasks in the product lifecycle — such as accelerating specification review and reducing manual back-and-forth between retailers and suppliers — so teams spend less time on repetitive checks and more time bringing products to market.
Built for product development and compliance, not general use. Trace One Copilot is designed specifically for the formulation, specification, labeling, and compliance challenges of process industries. This focus — combined with more than 30 years of food and beverage domain expertise — is what separates purpose-built AI for PLM from generic AI assistants.
Key TakeawayIn regulated industries, AI is only valuable if its outputs are accurate, explainable, and grounded in trusted data. Trace One Copilot applies AI to food and beverage product development and compliance, built on enterprise AI infrastructure (Google Vertex AI and Azure OpenAI) and grounded in Trace One’s proprietary regulatory intelligence rather than generic models. This pragmatic, data-grounded approach accelerates high-friction tasks — such as specification review — while keeping outputs auditable, which is essential when the cost of an error is a recall or compliance failure. |
How does PLM accelerate new product development in food and beverage?
Speed to market is a critical competitive advantage in food and beverage, where consumer trends shift rapidly and first movers capture disproportionate market share. PLM accelerates new product development by connecting every phase of the process — from ideation and formulation through testing, compliance review, packaging design, and commercialization — in a single workflow.
By eliminating manual handoffs between R&D, quality, regulatory, procurement, and marketing teams, PLM reduces cycle times and enables parallel workstreams. When a formulation changes, downstream specifications, labels, and packaging are updated automatically — removing the bottleneck of sequential review processes.
Barilla, one of the world’s largest food companies, uses Trace One to manage recipe development, nutritional labeling, and compliance across its global product portfolio.
Key TakeawayPLM accelerates food and beverage product development by connecting formulation, specification, compliance, labeling, and packaging workflows in a single platform — eliminating manual handoffs between R&D, quality, regulatory, procurement, and marketing teams. When a formulation changes, downstream specifications, labels, and packaging are updated automatically. Barilla, one of the world’s largest food companies, uses Trace One to manage recipe development, nutritional labeling, and compliance across its global product portfolio. |
What role does PLM play in food labeling and packaging compliance?
Food labeling errors are among the most costly and damaging compliance failures in the food industry. Incorrect allergen declarations, inaccurate nutritional information, and non-compliant claims can trigger product recalls, regulatory fines, and lasting damage to brand trust.
PLM for food and beverage reduces this risk by creating a direct, automated connection between product formulation data and label content. When a formulation changes — whether due to an ingredient substitution, a supplier change, or a regulatory update — the PLM platform automatically flags all affected labels and packaging artwork for review and update. This eliminates the manual, error-prone process of tracking formulation-to-label dependencies across spreadsheets and email chains.
Key TakeawayUndeclared allergens and labeling errors remain a leading cause of food recalls. PLM for food and beverage automates the connection between formulation data and label content — ensuring nutritional panels, allergen declarations, ingredient lists, and regulatory claims update automatically when formulations change. This eliminates the manual, error-prone process of tracking formulation-to-label dependencies across spreadsheets and email, reducing recall risk and accelerating time to market. |
How are leading food and beverage companies using PLM today?
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Food and Beverage
Barilla: digitizing the supply chain for transparency and consumer trust
Barilla, one of the world’s largest food companies, partnered with Trace One to digitize its supply chain operations and deliver full ingredient traceability to consumers. By implementing PLM across its product lifecycle, Barilla achieved end-to-end visibility from raw ingredients through finished products, enabling the transparency that modern consumers demand.
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Food and Beverage
Suntory Global Spirits: transforming product development with Trace One Devex PLM
Suntory Global Spirits transformed its product development processes by replacing legacy systems with Trace One Devex PLM. The migration consolidated multiple tools into a single platform, streamlining product lifecycle management across the organization.
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Food and Beverage
UNFI: improved efficiency with Trace One PLM
UNFI partnered with Trace One to digitize its product lifecycle, enhancing efficiency, compliance, and speed-to-market across its global product and supplier network. The implementation centralized product data and streamlined supplier collaboration workflows.
Named testimonials
Ideal PLM Partner
“I am pleased to announce that Bauli Group has selected Trace One as its core PLM. Their industry expertise and commitment to our success made Trace One the ideal partner for streamlining R&D, optimizing project management, accelerating time to market and support our ambitious growth.”
— Paolo Sassi, Chief Information and Digital Officer, Bauli
Collaboration and Visibility
“Our better ability to collaborate now gives us a big advantage. That comes from Trace One’s search capabilities and the project structure it provides. We can see across the portfolio, collaborate, and avoid duplication. People can see each other’s projects and add each other to projects to improve the technologies we’re developing.”
— Director of Research and Development, food ingredients company
What does Trace One PLM implementation look like?
Step 1 — Planning and requirements workshop. We guide your teams through effective design workshops to uncover the right configuration for your new PLM system.
Step 2 — System build and data migration. Trace One builds out the PLM system based on your unique requirements, helps you settle into new workflows, and supports each team on its piece of the data migration.
Step 3 — Testing and validation. Before launch, we validate the PLM system in your environment based on established use cases and perform detailed testing.
Step 4 — Launch and rollout. The clear, guided Trace One approach mitigates risk and ensures a smooth transition. Our experts create a project plan with an eye to maintaining business continuity.
Implementation timeline. Typical implementation for Tier 1 and Tier 2 food and beverage manufacturers takes 9–18 months, depending on scope, data migration complexity, and organizational readiness.
How do you compare and choose the right PLM for food and beverage manufacturing?
Selecting a PLM platform for food and beverage manufacturing requires evaluating capabilities that are fundamentally different from what matters in discrete manufacturing or fashion PLM. Compared to general-purpose PLM software, a platform purpose-built for food and beverage delivers native formulation workflows, integrated regulatory intelligence, and automated labeling — capabilities that would otherwise require costly customization or bolt-on modules. The right platform must address the specific complexity of process manufacturing while supporting your growth trajectory.
What questions should you ask when evaluating F&B PLM vendors?
- Does the platform support native formulation management with nutritional calculations, allergen tracking, and ingredient substitution workflows?
- Does it include integrated regulatory intelligence covering your target markets (FSMA, EU FIR, CSRD, EPR, PPWR)?
- Does it automate the connection between formulation data and labeling/artwork?
- Does the vendor have a proven track record with food and beverage companies specifically?
Key TakeawayThe best PLM for food and beverage manufacturers is purpose-built for process industries — meaning it natively supports formulation management, nutritional calculations, allergen tracking, multi-jurisdictional regulatory compliance, and food labeling automation. Trace One PLM combines more than 30 years of process industry expertise with integrated regulatory intelligence, trusted by over 9,000 brands worldwide. Key evaluation criteria include native formulation management (not bolted on), integrated regulatory databases covering target markets, automated labeling workflows, and a proven track record with food and beverage companies specifically. |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is PLM for food and beverage?
PLM for food and beverage is product lifecycle management software purpose-built for process manufacturing. It manages the full product lifecycle from formulation development and specification management through regulatory compliance, labeling, packaging, and post-launch optimization. Unlike discrete manufacturing PLM, it is designed to handle formulation complexity, ingredient variability, allergen management, and multi-jurisdictional regulatory requirements.
How is food PLM different from fashion or discrete manufacturing PLM?
Food PLM is built around formulations and ingredients rather than bills of materials and components. It includes specialized capabilities for nutritional calculations, allergen tracking, food labeling compliance, and regulatory intelligence across food safety frameworks like FSMA and the EU Food Information Regulation. Fashion and discrete PLM solutions lack these capabilities because they were designed for fundamentally different product types.
What regulations does food and beverage PLM help with?
Food and beverage PLM supports compliance with FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act), the EU Food Information Regulation (EU FIR), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), and various national food safety standards. Platforms with integrated regulatory intelligence proactively track changes across jurisdictions.
What is formulation management software?
Formulation management software enables food and beverage manufacturers to create, version, optimize, and manage product recipes within a PLM platform. It automates nutritional calculations, tracks allergen profiles, manages ingredient substitutions, and ensures regulatory compliance across target markets. It is the core capability that distinguishes food PLM from generic PLM solutions.
How does PLM help with food labeling?
PLM automates the connection between product formulation data and label content, ensuring nutritional panels, allergen declarations, ingredient lists, and regulatory claims are accurate and compliant across all markets. When formulations change, labels are automatically flagged for update, reducing the risk of costly labeling errors and recalls.
Can PLM help reduce food recalls?
Yes. PLM reduces recall risk by maintaining a single source of truth for product data, automating compliance checks, and ensuring traceability from raw ingredients to finished goods. When issues arise, PLM enables rapid identification of affected products and ingredients, accelerating response times and limiting the scope of recalls.
How long does it take to implement Trace One PLM?
Implementation timelines for enterprise food and beverage PLM vary based on scope, complexity, and organizational readiness. For Tier 1 and Tier 2 manufacturers, typical implementation takes 9–18 months, including configuration, data migration, integration with existing systems (ERP, regulatory databases), user training, and phased rollout.
Can Trace One integrate with our existing systems?
Yes. Trace One PLM integrates with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, regulatory databases, and other enterprise applications. The platform supports standard integration protocols and can connect with major ERP platforms to ensure seamless data flow between product development and operational systems.
What is the difference between PLM and ERP for food manufacturers?
PLM manages the product development and compliance lifecycle — formulations, specifications, labeling, and regulatory compliance. ERP manages operational execution — production planning, inventory, procurement, and financials. For food manufacturers, PLM and ERP are complementary: PLM ensures the product is correctly defined and compliant before ERP takes over production and distribution.
How does Trace One handle multi-market compliance requirements?
Trace One PLM includes integrated regulatory intelligence working in 14 languages. The platform tracks evolving food safety, labeling, and packaging requirements across jurisdictions and flags compliance gaps when regulations change — enabling proactive compliance rather than reactive firefighting.
Is Trace One suitable for small businesses?
Yes. Trace One PLM Advanced is a preconfigured, template-based, cloud PLM solution designed specifically for small and medium-sized food and beverage businesses. It provides enterprise-grade capabilities with pre-built workflows, templates, and best practices — without the complexity and cost of a full enterprise deployment.
What is the best PLM software for food and beverage manufacturers?
The best PLM software for food and beverage manufacturers is purpose-built for process industries — meaning it natively supports formulation management, nutritional calculations, allergen tracking, multi-jurisdictional regulatory compliance, and food labeling automation. Trace One PLM is trusted by over 9,000 brands worldwide and combines more than 30 years of process industry expertise with comprehensive regulatory intelligence.
What software do food manufacturers use for product development?
Food manufacturers use Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software to manage the full product development process from formulation through commercialization. Leading food manufacturers use purpose-built PLM platforms like Trace One PLM that integrate recipe management, specification management, regulatory compliance, labeling, and supplier quality management in a single system — replacing the fragmented approach of managing development across spreadsheets, email, and disconnected point solutions.
What are the typical ROI metrics for PLM implementation?
An independent Total Economic Impact study found that organizations using purpose-built PLM for process industries achieved 70% ROI with a 16-month payback period, driven by productivity gains across formulation, specification, and compliance workflows. Trace One supports $500 billion of manufacturer revenue annually across its customer base of 9,000+ brands.
Does Trace One use AI in its PLM platform?
Yes. Trace One Copilot applies AI to food and beverage product development and compliance tasks, built on enterprise AI infrastructure (Google Vertex AI and Azure OpenAI) and grounded in Trace One’s proprietary regulatory intelligence. Trace One takes a pragmatic approach — applying AI to concrete, high-friction work such as specification review rather than as a generic add-on.
How does Trace One keep its AI accurate and reliable for compliance?
Trace One Copilot is grounded in proprietary, verified product and regulatory data rather than the open internet, so its outputs are source-grounded and auditable. In regulated food and beverage environments — where a single error can trigger a recall or compliance failure — grounding AI in trusted data is what makes it usable, not just impressive.
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