Food & Beverage
For food and drink manufacturers, brands and specialty grocers whose margin moves with input costs. We connect cost, stock and order data and fix how products sell.
Our perspective
A food business usually loses margin in two places its reports do not cover. The first is the weeks between an ingredient or packaging price rise and the next price list. The second is the orders that fail between the product page and the delivery van. We once traced a Gulf specialty-food store's ordering complaints to a theme rule that hid the address form and to stock held against orders nobody had fulfilled, while most of its search traffic came from countries it could not deliver to. We work with food and grocery businesses from the records outward: cost cards, price lists, the stock ledger and the order log first, then the systems that act on them.
Market signals
01
The UK agri-food chain contributed £162.3bn, or 6.2% of national gross value added, in 2024. In 2025, small and medium-sized enterprises made up 98.8% of businesses in UK food and drink manufacturing.
02
The FAO Food Price Index averaged 136.0 points in September 2026, 5.8% higher than a year earlier. The FAO Cereal Price Index stood 17.2% above its September 2025 value.
03
Where a manufacturer prices from a standard-cost spreadsheet, a change in ingredient or packaging cost reaches the price list only at the next scheduled review, and every order in between carries the old margin.
How we help clients
Cost cards that reprice with inputs
TF-08FinanceWe rebuild each product's cost card from recipe, yield, packaging, energy and labor, linked to current purchase prices. When an input moves, the report lists the SKUs that have fallen below their margin floor and by how much, before the next price list goes out.
Trade spend matched to promotions
TF-04GrowthPromotional funding, listing fees and deductions on retailer and marketplace remittances are matched to the promotion and the orders they relate to. Margin per customer and per promotion is then measured, and unexplained deductions become a dated list the sales team can dispute.
Finding why online orders fail
TF-06Technology & DataFor brands and grocers that sell direct, we test the ordering path the way a customer meets it: address capture, delivery zones, stock availability and payment, on mobile and desktop. Blockers are fixed with the client's approval and the fix is confirmed against live orders.
One stock figure for short-dated lines
TF-07OperationsWarehouse stock, stock committed to open orders and the availability shown online are calculated from the same records, with use-by dates attached. Lines close to expiry are flagged while there is still time to discount, bundle or move them.
Search demand matched to where you deliver
TF-04GrowthRecipe and blog content often ranks in countries a food brand cannot ship to. We split traffic by deliverable market, rebuild product feeds and campaigns around the zones the business serves, and report orders instead of visits.
Ingredient and supplier records buyers can check
TF-10RiskSupplier approvals, specifications, certificates and their expiry dates held per ingredient let a manufacturer answer a retailer's technical questionnaire or an importer's due-diligence request from records. The same table shows which certificates lapse next quarter.
What changes next
Advertising rules for less healthy food
Since 5 January 2026, UK rules have banned paid online advertising of less healthy food and drink and restricted TV advertising of those products before 9pm. A brand needs to know which of its SKUs fall in scope, how much of last year's paid media they carried, and which products and channels the budget can move to.
Deposit return from October 2027
Deposit return schemes for single-use drinks containers start across the UK on 1 October 2027, with a 20p deposit on in-scope plastic, steel and aluminium containers, and glass included in Wales. Drinks producers must register, change labels and carry the deposit through price lists, invoices, retailer contracts and cash flow.
Origin data for cocoa, coffee, palm oil and soya
From 30 December 2026, large and medium operators placing cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soya, cattle products and the other commodities covered by the EU Deforestation Regulation on the EU market must hold due-diligence statements. Manufacturers that export products containing those ingredients to the EU will be asked by their importers for origin data per batch.
Business challenges
01
Price lists that lag input costs
Cereal, oil, sugar, energy and packaging costs can move sharply within a quarter. A producer that reprices from last quarter's standard costs ships for weeks at a margin nobody has recalculated, and the gap shows only when the accounts close.
02
Orders lost between basket and delivery
A hidden form field, a delivery zone set up wrongly or a payment step that fails on one device can stop orders for days. Advertising keeps spending, and the reports show sessions and add-to-baskets instead of the orders that never completed.
03
Three stock figures for one product
Stock in the warehouse system, stock shown on the website and stock already committed to unfulfilled orders are often three different numbers. With short-dated products the result is waste on one side and customers told an item is available on the other.
04
Trade spend reconciled after the event
Promotional funding, listing fees and deductions on retailer and marketplace remittances are matched to promotions weeks later, if at all. Margin per customer and per promotion is then estimated, and a deduction nobody queries within the retailer's window is lost.
05
Demand found where the business cannot deliver
Recipe pages and product content can rank in countries a food brand does not ship to. Search reports show growth while orders stay flat, and marketing effort goes on visitors who cannot buy.
Client results
View allWhere the opportunity sits
Margin by product, customer and promotion
Joining ingredient and packaging costs to sales and trade-spend records gives margin per SKU, customer and promotion, recalculated when input costs change instead of at the quarterly review.
One stock figure across every channel
Warehouse stock, committed stock and the availability shown online calculated from the same records, with alerts for short-dated lines, reduce both write-offs and orders that cannot be fulfilled.
Price reviews triggered by cost movement
A margin floor per SKU, checked each time a purchase price changes, turns repricing from a calendar event into a response to the cost that moved.
How we approach it
We start read-only with the records that decide margin: the ERP or accounts package, cost cards and the price list, the sales ledger and, for brands that sell direct, the online store, its product feeds and its order log. We trace how a product is costed, priced, ordered, picked and delivered, and note every point where a figure is re-keyed or estimated. Findings become a prioritized task list, each item with an owner and an acceptance check. If the client wants us to build, the same team delivers the costing and margin models, reporting, stock rules and store fixes, and closes each task only when the change is verified against live orders. Food safety, HACCP, allergen and labelling compliance stay with qualified specializts and the client's own teams. We do not buy, sell or broker food or ingredients on anyone's behalf. Growers and agri-food exporters are covered on our Agriculture & Agribusiness page.
How our experience is evidenced
THEFOCUS works with food and grocery businesses. One anonymised client result is published: the diagnosis of an online specialty-food store in the Gulf whose customers could not complete orders, where we found the cause in a theme rule and in stock committed to unfulfilled orders and made the immediate fixes with the client's approval. The longer program has not run long enough to measure, so no commercial results are claimed. Other engagements are confidential. FINMETRA is in design and FocusADS.ai is in development; neither is offered today.
How an engagement with THEFOCUS starts
A first conversation is about your situation. If there is a fit, we propose a scoped diagnostic with a fixed deliverable before any larger commitment.
Discuss this with us01
A working conversation
Forty-five minutes with the person who would lead the work. We ask about the decision, the systems behind it and the deadline.
02
A scoped diagnostic
Read-only access, a fixed timeframe and a written finding: what the records show, what it costs and what to change first.
03
A plan you can act on
Changes, owners, measures and exclusions in writing. The same team then builds and measures, or hands over cleanly.
- One accountable team
- The people who diagnose also build the systems and measure the result.
- Partners chosen per problem
- Independent specializts join for the parts that need them, under one contract.
- Records before dashboards
- Orders, ledgers and logs are reconciled before any recommendation depends on them.
Questions executives ask
Have you worked with food and drink businesses?
Yes. We work with food and grocery businesses, and a published anonymised result describes how we diagnosed an online specialty-food store in the Gulf whose customers could not order. Other engagements are confidential, so we describe them only in general terms and claim no results from them.
Do you also work with growers and agricultural exporters?
Yes. Buyer research, cost per tonne and lot records for growers, co-operatives and agri-food exporters are covered on our Agriculture & Agribusiness page. This page covers manufacturers, brands and grocers.
Do you advise on food safety or labelling?
No. Food safety systems, allergen and labelling rules and certification stay with qualified specializts. We work on the commercial, financial and operational data around them and the systems that hold it.
How would you show whether the work helped?
Each task has an acceptance check agreed before work starts, such as the share of SKUs with a current cost basis or the number of orders canceled for lack of stock. We report the measured figure and say so when there is not yet enough data to read it.
Discuss this with us
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