How Centric Software Addresses the Next Phase of Food & Beverage PLM

For most of PLM’s history in food & beverage, the category stopped at the recipe. Packaging, labeling and go-to-market lived in separate systems, as though commercialization sat outside the product life cycle entirely. Gartner identifies commercialization and retail as one of the approaches shaping the market, with PLM capabilities increasingly working alongside Product Experience Management (PXM) and go-to-market capabilities. This reflects the broader movement Gartner describes from fragmented applications toward connected product platforms.

Working together, Centric PLM™ and Centric PXM™ connect product development with commercialization, carrying approved nutrition, allergen and packaging information into market-facing content. Teams can enrich that information with marketing copy and digital assets, adapt it for different markets and distribute it across retailer and ecommerce channels. This reduces manual handoffs and repeated data entry, keeps commercial content consistent with product specifications and accelerates launch preparation.

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Ingredient price volatility, supply constraints and changing consumer and regulatory requirements are increasing the pressure to reformulate. Gartner highlights how food and beverage PLM solutions are evolving to address this challenge, with simulation capabilities that calculate the effects of ingredient substitutions on cost, nutrition and compliance. Teams can evaluate alternatives earlier, reducing the manual calculations that slow formulation decisions.

Centric PLM connects recipes, ingredient specifications, supplier information and costing so teams can assess formulation alternatives using shared product data. Recipe comparison enables teams to evaluate different options, while visibility into where ingredients are used identifies products affected by a proposed change. Together, these capabilities reduce spreadsheet-based analysis and give formulation, sourcing and compliance teams a clearer basis for selecting alternatives and coordinating the changes needed to bring reformulated products to market.

Regulatory requirements increasingly affect how food and beverage products are formulated, packaged and labeled for different markets. Gartner highlights traceability, smart labeling and sustainability as key areas shaping PLM requirements. The report describes PLM as a foundation for connected product information, with links to enterprise and manufacturing systems extending that information across the supply chain.

Centric PLM connects compliance rules, ingredient specifications, supplier certificates and packaging information with product development workflows. Teams can evaluate products against defined requirements, identify missing documentation and assess how ingredient or packaging changes affect compliance before approval and launch. Managing these checks alongside development reduces manual document handling and late-stage rework, while maintaining a record of product changes and approvals for audit preparation.

Alternative proteins, functional foods and personalized nutrition are adding new formulation, labeling and sourcing requirements to food and beverage portfolios. Gartner identifies growing product complexity, regional packaging variants and market-specific claims as drivers of PLM adoption. Looking ahead, the report also anticipates configuration rules for formulations and packaging that enable manufacturers to offer personalized products within defined safety, compliance and manufacturing constraints.

Centric PLM connects product specifications, formulations, ingredients and packaging data so teams can manage regional and private label variants within a shared development environment. Teams can track market-specific requirements, identify which products use a particular ingredient or component and coordinate updates across affected variants. This reduces the work of reconciling separate records and gives manufacturers greater control over expanding portfolios, with clearer visibility into what must change for each product and market.

The market developments described by Gartner point to a practical priority: connecting the information and decisions that shape a product from development through launch. For food and beverage manufacturers, this means evaluating how quickly teams can assess formulation alternatives, identify compliance implications, coordinate product changes and prepare consistent information for commercial channels.

Centric Software addresses these requirements through integrated, AI-powered solutions that connect product development with commercialization. By reducing manual work and bringing teams together around shared product data, manufacturers can respond faster to changing requirements while maintaining control over costs, quality and launch readiness.

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