How Does Your Food Business’ Strategic Plan Stack Up? [Downloadable Checklist]

If your roadmap is wrong, you’ll get lost. Ensuring your company’s roadmap—or strategic plan—embodies best practices is essential for your business’ future. With a three-to-five-year plan, there are several moving parts you must consider. Here, we review crucial elements your strategic plan must include, providing a downloadable checklist for you to use for your own plan.

Continue Reading “How Does Your Food Business’ Strategic Plan Stack Up? [Downloadable Checklist]”

3 Key Areas to Examine in Your Manufacturing Analysis

What’s the best way to remain competitive in the food processing industry today? A strategic plan. It equips your business with the knowledge, tools and strategies necessary to evolve and adapt to changing marketing conditions and consumer demands. In fact, we’ll be hosting a Food Engineering webinar June 23, 3 Key Elements in a Successful Strategic Plan for Growth to dive into strategic plans even further. Last week, we discussed the first step in developing a strategic plan: developing a business plan. This week, we’ll discuss step two: conducting a manufacturing analysis.

Continue Reading “3 Key Areas to Examine in Your Manufacturing Analysis”

[Infographic] 5 Important Factors for Selecting a Site for Your New Food Plant

When choosing the ideal site for your new food plant, your decision should always tie back to a single question: How will this site help my business thrive? Build a sound business plan around the type and quantity of goods your facility will produce, and use that plan to guide you through your site selection. You’ll need to address several factors throughout your search, most of important of which are the five core factors illustrated in the infographic below:

Continue Reading “[Infographic] 5 Important Factors for Selecting a Site for Your New Food Plant”

5 Things Poultry Processors Can Learn from Bell & Evans’ New Chicken Plant

Family-owned premium poultry processor Bell & Evans has remained at the front of its industry’s flock by prioritizing high quality from all angles—from its antibiotic-free chicken to the materials and processes within its facilities. The most recent example of this commitment? A 160,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art chicken packaging, further processing, par-fry and storage plant in its hometown of Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania. Stellar was the design-builder for the poultry plant project and found it to be unlike any other project we’ve been a part of. This new facility is infused with cutting edge innovation and durability inside and out, from its materials and finishes to its packaging process.

Continue Reading “5 Things Poultry Processors Can Learn from Bell & Evans’ New Chicken Plant”

What Food Processors Should Know About the New Earthquake Building Rating System

In November 2015, the United States Resiliency Council (USRC) launched the USRC Earthquake Building Rating System, a first-of-its-kind performance rating system for seismic hazards. This system is the first reliable, consistent method to determine how susceptible buildings may be to earthquakes, providing facility owners, insurance providers, and engineers with a better understanding of how to prevent losses. The rating system assesses buildings on three important criteria, each of which is detailed later in this article.

Continue Reading “What Food Processors Should Know About the New Earthquake Building Rating System”

5 Details to Give Your Design-Builder for a More Accurate Food Project Budget

At this time of year, many food processors are planning next year’s capital expenditures, which often means piecing together budgets for upcoming food plant construction projects. It is important to create the most accurate budget possible: a tricky task. Frequently, food processors prepare budgets without the assistance of an experienced design-builder. By doing so, they make assumptions that can skew their entire budget.

Continue Reading “5 Details to Give Your Design-Builder for a More Accurate Food Project Budget”

6 Elements of a Thorough Situation Analysis

A manufacturing analysis is the portion of a strategic plan that focuses on all the processes and materials related to manufacturing. A situation analysis is a major focus of the manufacturing analysis, serving as an in-depth look at the physical layout of the facility. The goal of situation analysis is to ensure that the technology and strategy you plan to implement are feasible in the physical space of your facility.

Continue Reading “6 Elements of a Thorough Situation Analysis”

3 Keys to Handling Crisis Communications for Your Food Manufacturing Plant

Construction projects do not always run as planned, sometimes resulting in emergencies that require immediate reactions. From tornados and hurricanes to roof collapses, I know that emergency response is no easy task. With much to get done, crisis communications used to be the furthest thing from my mind when it came to these types of situations. However, managing the press is key to not only avoiding a public relations disaster, but to protecting your employees and business. Continue Reading “3 Keys to Handling Crisis Communications for Your Food Manufacturing Plant”