Food & Beverage
Solutions for feeding the world and quenching thirsts
Today’s food and beverage consumers are increasingly discerning, placing greater value on expanded options, improved nutritional choices, and more sustainable products.
To meet these evolving expectations, you must scale your operations efficiently and reliably — without disruptive changes to existing processes or excessive capital investment. Automation allows you to address operational challenges while enhancing flexibility and performance.
What are some current challenges for food and beverage producers and distributors?
Labor shortage
Labor is not always a dependable resource. For example, a company may experience high employee turnover rates or face an insufficient applicant pool that doesn’t satisfy its demand. In many cases, the lack of labor availability justifies automation.
Order accuracy
The food & beverage industry primarily serves grocery and general merchandise retailers. Given the competitive nature of those retailer, food & beverage producers must deliver accurate orders on time, every time. Additionally, some items (such as wine and fresh seafood) have a very high value, so it's even more important that they are not mishandled.
Transportation costs
Freight rates have been rising steadily over the last few years. This is an especially big problem for refrigerated/frozen applications as well as for direct-to-store delivery. Food & beverage producers must minimize transportation costs by loading trailers quickly and efficiently.
Quality control
The food & beverage industry must adhere to the highest safety standards with reliable track and trace capabilities to guarantee product safety. Keeping items damage-free is also critical with quality assurance programs that ensure products are ready for purchase in excellent condition.
Inventory visibility
Consumers want and expect a wide range of options, and this has led to high SKU proliferation in an industry where good inventory visibility and management are critical to success. To deliver accurate orders fast in this environment, food & beverage producers need tools to ensure the right products are in the right place and at the right time.
Benefits of automation for your type of food & beverage operation
Food & beverage producers and distributors share certain challenges, but some are unique to each segment. Automation provides solutions:
Explore a few Dematic technologies for food and beverage operations
Food and beverage operations require reliable handling across storage, picking, and shipping. Core workflow technologies such as Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS), conveyors, sortation, palletizing, and goods‑to‑person workstations help maintain product flow, accuracy, and throughput across diverse environments.
These modular solutions allow food and beverage operations to start with the capacity they need today and expand as demand changes. Working together, they support efficient use of space, consistent performance, and dependable operations without disruption.
AS/RS solutions automate the storage and retrieval of inventory with speed and accuracy across food and beverage operations. High‑density designs improve space utilization while system‑directed movement reduces manual handling. These systems support consistent product flow, improve throughput, and create safer working environments in high‑volume distribution operations.
Automated conveyor systems provide steady, reliable product flow across food and beverage operations. Conveyors transport cartons, cases, and totes between receiving, storage, picking, and shipping areas. Automated transport reduces manual handling and helps synchronize workflows, supporting continuous throughput as volumes or layouts change.
Sortation systems route products accurately to their correct destination within food and beverage distribution operations. Integrated controls manage scanning, diverting, and tracking in real time to support high‑volume processing. Modular designs adapt as demand changes, helping maintain speed, accuracy, and dependable order flow during peak periods.
Palletizing and depalletizing solutions automate repetitive case handling while improving consistency and safety. Automated and ergonomic systems support a wide range of case sizes and packaging types. Modular designs adapt as product mix or volumes change, helping food and beverage operations maintain stable throughput and reliable pallet quality.
Goods-to-person workstations support fast, accurate processing in food and beverage fulfillment. Items are delivered directly to ergonomic workstations, reducing travel and improving pick accuracy. Intelligent software synchronizes tasks in real time to keep workflows balanced. Modular designs scale as volumes fluctuate.
How Dematic works in the real world
It is critical to select the right supplier - one that will be a trusted partner throughout the entire process.
As a company that’s led innovation in Supply Chain for more than 200 years, Dematic provides the widest range of solutions and the expertise to build the solution you need for complete control and visibility over your operation.
Our solutions are tailored to your business challenges. Using standardised sub-systems and industry-leading insight and expertise, Dematic provides world-class integrated hardware, software, and support to help you empower people, optimise space, drive growth and improve efficiency.
With Dematic, you can grow your business to compete locally, retain customer loyalty, and deliver with speed and accuracy on a global scale.