Celebrate Earth Week with Aptean’s Top Sustainability Resources for Food and Beverage Businesses

This year, Earth Day has been extended to a full “Earth Week” centered on the theme of “Invest in Our Planet.” With it comes a poignant reminder that the food and beverage industry as a whole has plenty of room to improve when it comes to mitigating the negative environmental effects of modern cultivation, manufacturing and distribution operations.

Unfortunately, the sector is responsible for approximately one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and only 19% of consumers say they have “a lot” of trust in food and beverage companies to do what’s right by our planet.

The good news, though, is that more and more organizations in the market are stepping up to the plate in terms of really becoming sustainable. In IDC’s Global Food and Beverage Industry Trends and Strategic Insights 2022 whitepaper commissioned by Aptean, sustainability was identified as both the top trend for prioritization over the next year, as well as the greatest focus from a risk mitigation perspective.

As a solutions provider, we’re committed to supporting our customers and the food and beverage industry as we move to leaner and greener ways of doing business. That includes our efforts to develop specialized software with the features you need for reducing food waste and increasing efficiency, as well as our dedication to providing insightful content that can help guide and inform your sustainability initiatives.

To mark the occasion of Earth Day and help you understand how reimagined processes backed by purpose-built software can help make your organization more environmentally friendly, we’ve collected a list of our top five sustainability-related food and beverage resources from the past year. Dive in and get the details on how a sound strategy coupled with Aptean technology can drive progress toward your sustainability goals.

1. Sustainable Production and Distribution: A Food Industry Playbook

This eBook comes packed with a variety of “plays” that can improve the sustainability of your company’s growing, sourcing, manufacturing, product development and distribution processes. It also includes relevant examples of food and beverage businesses already making a difference by implementing similar strategies to mitigate environmental impacts, demonstrating the real-world utility and potential outcomes you can strive to achieve.

Better still, it’s completely free and just a download away, so you’re just a few clicks from having this valuable asset and the insights therein.

2. How Sustainable is Your Food and Beverage Company?

By taking this brief assessment, you can get a high-level feel for how your sustainability efforts stack up against those of other businesses in the food and beverage industry. With sections covering all steps in the supply chain—from cultivation to consumption—you’ll also gain insight into which operational areas you should focus on for improvement, as well as what business systems might benefit your organization the most.

Simply navigate over and answer a few questions, and you’ll have your company’s “Sustainability Score” in just a few minutes.

3. 4 Ways Industry-Specific Solutions Can Help Drive More Sustainable Food Manufacturing

In this blog, we explore four key practices for reducing your environmental impact enabled by software solutions developed specifically for food and beverage companies. This covers functionalities of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, as well as those of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and enterprise asset management (EAM) solutions, that help keep excess waste in check and drive down unnecessary energy consumption.

Read the full post for more on the “how” behind purpose-built software’s ability to contribute to progress on your sustainability goals.

4. The Impacts of the Energy Crisis on the Food and Beverage Industry and How to Mitigate Them

While fuel and electricity costs are no longer surging upward, they still remain at elevated levels resulting in not only greater expenses on energy but also scarcities of several materials derived from natural gas that are critical for food and beverage manufacturing and distribution operations. This blog post discusses the impacts of these developments, as well as the ways that solutions like the aforementioned ERP, OEE, EAM and transportation management systems (TMS) can help your company overcome them.

If that piques your interest, take a look at the full blog and get the scoop on how your organization can best navigate this ongoing period of economic uncertainty.

5. 4 Ways Food and Beverage Businesses Can Shrink Their Carbon Footprint

Your business’s carbon footprint isn’t just a measure of the greenhouse gases generated by operations—it’s also one of the most highly visible metrics by which consumers can judge your impact on the environment and commitment to sustainability. We cover four highly impactful strategies for shrinking your organization’s contributions to climate change in this blog and also explain how industry-specific software solutions can support your organization in these endeavors.

As a relatively quick read with lots of great points and compelling statistics, the full post should help you understand how even small changes can lead to a significant reduction in emissions.

Aptean: An Ally on the Road to Sustainable Success

These are just a few examples of the content we’ve produced to recognize the food and beverage world’s ongoing push for more sustainable models and methods. That said, the five resources above are a great starting point for industry professionals inspired by Earth Week to drive positive changes at their organizations, especially if your plans include leveraging technology to aid in your efforts.

Speaking of, you’ll need a provider you can trust if you’re seeking to implement new software solutions, and we have some strong reasons that Aptean should be chief among the names you consider. For starters, there’s our considerable industry expertise, developed through decades of collective experience in the food and beverage sector and deep understanding of best practices.

We also offer flexible cloud deployments of our solutions on the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Such setups alleviate the need to install additional hardware before implementation and also afford your company greater scalability, enhanced data protection, stronger cybersecurity and broader accessibility.

Consider also our high ranking on The Software Report’s Power 500 Software Companies of 2023, which demonstrates our position as a leader in industry-specific solutions, as well as the excellence of our products and user-friendly nature of the systems we provide. Aptean came in at the 30th overall spot, putting us in the top 10% of organizations included on the list—truly the upper echelon.

Finally, the fact that you can turn to one organization for your business software needs can simplify your search and help you focus on the strategy and successful roll-out of the solutions you select. We have a full ecosystem of complementary systems—even beyond the ERP, OEE, EAM and TMS options we’ve mentioned here.

So, ready to learn more about Aptean’s suite of top-tier food and beverage systems and how they can support your sustainability initiatives? Reach out to us today or request a personalized demo.