By: Yoges Latchmanan - CPG Segment Lead for SSA at Schneider Electric

Rising energy costs and increasing pressure to improve efficiency, whilst growing sustainability commitments, have become the hallmark of the beverage industry. Indeed, it’s a major ask that requires a deeper insight into operations whilst modernising operations that meet the above challenges.

Part and parcel of modernisation and resultant improved operations is gaining deeper insight into how a plant’s energy is performing. Beverage production, by its very nature, is energy intensive and features significant consumption across refrigeration, compressed air, pumping, processing, packaging, water treatment and other utilities.

The dilemma is that without accurate and granular data, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to determine where inefficiencies exist and where interventions will deliver the greatest return.

Exacerbating this challenge is that many facilities still rely on manual data collection and reporting. In fact, recent research shows that manufacturers using legacy or spreadsheet-driven systems face significant reporting delays that can last hours if not days.

This, in turn, means that valuable engineering and operations resources spend considerable time gathering and compiling information rather than analysing it and acting on it.

The solution is to provide teams with the ability to identify anomalies immediately whilst also receiving alerts when conditions fall outside expected parameters. This all can lead to faster, data-driven decision making.

Additionally, digitisation improves reporting accuracy, supports sustainability disclosures and provides a much stronger foundation for predictive maintenance, operational optimisation and long-term planning.

Digitisation changes this equation.

As mentioned, beverage manufacturers will benefit tremendously from automated energy and operational data collection, which will provide them with the much-needed real-time visibility of their plant performance. 

The benefits are substantial; visibility provides the insights needed to understand consumption patterns, benchmark performance and make informed decisions. It transforms energy from a fixed operating cost into a measurable and manageable resource.

Importantly, visibility enables beverage manufacturers to move from reactive management to proactive optimisation, creating the foundation for both operational efficiency and sustainability.

Furthermore, not every improvement requires significant capital investment. Once energy consumption is understood, relatively straightforward operational changes can sometimes deliver meaningful savings.

The ability to benchmark performance across equipment, production lines or processes also helps manufacturers identify where attention and investment should be prioritised. Energy monitoring, therefore, moves beyond simply being an information-gathering exercise but rather an invaluable tool for decision-making.

Here, Schneider Electric's combination of advanced metering, EcoStruxure Power Monitoring Expert (PME) advanced power and energy monitoring software and advisory expertise can help organisations establish a clearer picture of their energy performance.

The people equation

However, technology alone will not deliver successful modernisation. The people operating and managing these facilities remain central to the transformation.

Across manufacturing environments, experienced employees often hold decades of operational knowledge - transferring said knowledge therefore becomes an important part of building long-term resilience.

This means skills development needs to progress alongside technology deployment. Younger teams need not only to understand how to use digital tools, but also how to interpret the information those tools provide and translate it into operational action.

The most effective modernisation strategies therefore bring together three elements: visibility, capability and continuous improvement.

Technology provides the visibility. Digital platforms turn data into insight. Skills enable people to act on that insight. And continuous improvement ensures that the organisation keeps learning from its operational data rather than treating modernisation as a once-off project.

The five steps

The roadmap to optimised and modernised beverage operations should include the following five steps:

1. Measure before you improve - energy visibility is the foundation of modernisation.

2. Digitise to unlock insight - turning raw data into actionable intelligence drives efficiency and smarter decisions.

3. Make sustainability measurable - progress depends on tracked actions, not just strategic targets.

4. Evolve people alongside technology - long‑term success requires skills and systems advancing together.

5. Embed continuous improvement - building resilience helps beverage manufacturers cut costs, stay competitive, and grow sustainably.

In the end, the future of beverage plant modernisation will hinge on creating connected, data-driven operations where energy is visible, decisions are informed and people have the skills to act.