You’d be hard-pressed to find a product from 20 years ago that exists in the exact same form today. Advancements, technology and trends all play a role for product changes and improvements. Even the most successful food and beverage products find themselves undergoing formula changes, new packaging and artwork, and adjustments to portion and package sizes. No matter the reason for these changes, it’s important for F&B companies to track any modifications to a product to ensure quality and consistency moving forward.

Specification Data Management software is a solid solution for managing version control at scale. Here’s a look at some of the top version control challenges that can be addressed with specification data management:

Keep a Complete History of Product Recipes & Formulas

As recipes and formulas are tweaked and refined, F&B producers need to know the exact version to send to production. This is especially important when ingredients are swapped out due to cost, recalls, quality issues, or adverse health effects. Tracking ingredients at the spec level also helps maintain nutritional accuracy and promotes alignment with the nutrition facts printed on the product packaging.

By tracking each product’s specifications and version history, companies can ensure a higher quality end product and avoid eroding consumer loyalty by accidentally altering the taste or quality with the wrong recipe.

Maintain Compliance and Accountability

Tight controls are the key to compliance in the food and beverage industry. When upstream data is accurate and reliable, there’s less chance that issues will occur downstream (e.g., the production and distribution processes). Specification management software provides the tool for spec-level details regarding each product and individual ingredient, including source, how they should be stored, used, and properly disposed. Maintaining these records in a central database can help companies be more responsive when it comes to use of ingredients in production, as well as provide proof of operational compliance. In the event of a recall or product issue, spec-level data can help address compliance issues and trace products back to their source.

Ensure Operational Efficiency with Real-Time Data

Managing all aspects of a product recipe - including which vendors provide the ingredients, where ingredients are stored, shelf life dates, and other key details - from a central source can help improve operational efficiency. Users have access to the data they need and spend less time guessing at the next steps and more time making progress on production.What’s more, version control helps you eliminate the risk that an older recipe might be used or that a product version for one brand might be used for a different brand.

Achieve True Version Control with Specright

Specright Specification Data Management software is an essential tool for food and beverage companies in need of better version control. By serving as a single source of truth throughout the organization, production teams can use Specright to ensure they’re making the correct version of every product at the right time and reduce the risk of costly recalls or quality issues. Download our ebook and discover how Specright puts version control on autopilot!