Why are regulatory data requirements becoming more complex for food and beverage manufacturers?

Food and beverage manufacturers are being asked to provide increasingly detailed information about their products as regulatory requirements evolve. For companies operating in alcoholic beverages, this can mean managing more granular information about ingredients, compounds, and product composition than was previously required or routinely enforced. 

Jimmy Bookstore, VP of Innovation at Brown-Forman, identifies the regulatory landscape as one of the biggest challenges facing the food and beverage industry. He explains that manufacturers are increasingly expected to provide specific product information, including details about compounds that may have been regulated for years but were not previously subject to the same level of scrutiny. 

The level of detail required is also changing. Jimmy describes requests to break out ingredient lists and provide information at a more granular level, including individual components and grains within alcoholic beverage products. 

In this video, Jimmy explains how increasing regulatory scrutiny is creating greater information demands for food and beverage manufacturers and why getting a handle on detailed product and regulatory data has become an important challenge for the industry.

Video Transcript

“The biggest challenge facing the food and beverage industry right now, especially in alcoholic beverages, would be the regulatory space. 

We are really being pushed more and more to provide very specific, detailed information on our products related to all sorts of compounds, even compounds that were regulated for years and years that were perhaps not enforced. Maybe the equipment wasn’t in place, the analytical equipment wasn’t there, or [unclear], they just weren’t being checked. 

More and more, we’re asked to provide very detailed, very specific information on our products. Break out ingredient lists, break out things we were never asked to break out before. For instance, you’re no longer whiskey, you’re alcohol and water. And even down to the grains, you’re breaking these out. So, more and more information and more and more detail. 

Getting a handle on this regulatory space is really a big area.” 

— Jimmy Bookstore, VP of Innovation at Brown-Forman