Opportunities and Challenges for The UK Drink Manufacturing and Food Processing Industry

This Maine Pointe perspectives paper focuses on the current challenges and opportunities for UK drink manufacturers and food processors. It outlines four steps industry leaders should take in order to respond to increasing customer demands.

Suppliers in an intensely aggressive market must adapt to succeed An ongoing and increasingly ferocious price war in the UK and across Europe has put supermarkets under severe pressure to deliver “best value” to customers. In the UK around two-thirds of the food retail market is controlled by 4 major players, Tesco, ASDA, Sainsbury and Morrisons, who are slugging it out with discount stores such as Aldi, Iceland and Lidl. Their continued survival depends on the ability to lower prices whilst protecting margins; the result is a downward pressure on food prices right across the sector. Drink manufacturing and food processing suppliers are being asked to do more for less and there’s no sign that this situation will change in the foreseeable future.

So how will this impact on the drink manufacturing and food processing industry? Everyone is looking for ways to woo customers and differentiate themselves through better offers and cheaper prices.