Why I believe that it’s theoretically possible to create large impact with operations consulting for food companies

𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴-𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺.

This is just one of several success factors that all need to be excellent for a sustainable business.
But when you imagine similar food companies with a great product, a well-known brand and a similar setup competing for the same retail shelf-space, that one is likely going to win, which is more efficient and reliable, and can thus offer more competitive prices and quicker adjustments to please the clients and react to trends and market developments.

There is a lot of competition for FMCG products and even superior innovations first need to find their way on retail shelves and create a recurring consumer demand.

Hence, it will be very difficult to stay ahead of the competition in the long-term without efficient and reliable operations.

During my first projects, I quickly identified operations optimization potentials and cost-reduction opportunities that can move a food company in a more competitive position.

When I manage to enable many sustainable food companies to outperform their less sustainable competition due to operations advantages in this way, I could create more impact as an external consultant and freelancer than when working in an easily replaceable full-time role at a single food company where I’m stuck solving the small daily business issues with little impact.
This is the hypothesis I’m currently testing.

However, there are several constraints to whether my consulting can actually create additional positive impact. Everything needs to fit and work well for operations consulting to create positive impacts:
• The food company up needs more sustainable products, which are better than the status quo and replace the consumption of less sustainable products
• The impact potential needs to be large (with many potential customers and use-cases)
• The company has room for improvement in their operations
• I can identify and convincingly recommend effective optimization levers
• The optimizations are successfully executed (either by me or by the company directly)
• All other success factors in the company are met so it grows big and fulfills a large part of its impact potential
• If any of these aspects doesn’t work, operations consulting won’t create additional impact.

Therefore, I already have several other ideas on my mind, which I want to test sooner or later in order to accelerate the food transition to a more sustainable nutrition.


❓Which value do you connect with operational excellence? Is it just a neglected “nice to have” or an important priority in your company?