Food Industry

Interim Management in the Food Industry

MANAGERIM provides you with interim managers in the food industry to help you meet your transformation challenges

The cycle of change that the food industry is currently facing is unprecedented in its scale and pace, with the conjunction of several factors:

• The rising and volatile prices of agricultural raw materials, packaging and energy
• Changes  in end-customer behavior, amplified by the global crisis of COVID-19: individualization of consumption, connected consumer who is informed and increasingly attentive to the ecology and respect of animal welfare, to the sanitary quality and nutritional values of products
• A growing need for traceability and transparency on raw material sourcing, supply, manufacturing processes, quality monitoring of nutritional compositions of products, etc.
• The development of “local eating” and short circuits on a large scale, which modifies the logics of supply and production and the attention to be paid to packaging and food waste to limit the environmental impact
• Digital development with the emergence of new technologies and new players: Food Tech and its ecosystem of start-ups present throughout the chain, AgriTech, Food Science, food e-commerce, the development of new services related to catering, home delivery of dishes, intermediation services between consumers, etc.
• …

Agriculture and agri-food businesses are accelerating their transformation to reinvent themselves and best meet consumer expectations and regulatory developments, and must:

• Pursue continuous performance improvement efforts to gain competitiveness
• Accelerate the digital transformation of their tools, methods and processes across the entire chain (industrialization, order reception, manufacturing, maintenance, delivery, inventory management, after-sales services, customer relations, etc.)
• Reinforce the automatization and robotization of the manufacturing equipment
• Optimize resource mobilization (energy in particular) and reduce the environmental impact of their activities
• Strengthen development and innovation efforts

MANAGERIM, your interim management firm, expert in the food sector

Our interim managers are experienced women and men, leaders and executives, with successful prior experience in leading transformation projects in this industrial sector (which includes over 10,000 companies in France).

They have developed in-depth knowledge of the processes and challenges of specific food industrial sectors:

• Manufacturing of processed food products: ready-made meals, fruits, vegetables, fish, jams, etc.
• Manufacturing of cereal-based products: semolina and pasta, flour, industrial bread and pastries, biscuits, animal feed…
• Dairy industry: milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, lactose, ice cream…
• Sugar industry
• Meat industry: slaughtering, cutting & inspecting the livestock, poultry, deli meat, meat canning
• Oil and margarine manufacturing
• Manufacturing of various food products including chocolate, confectionery, packaged coffee and tea, spices, prepared sauces, soups and baby foods...
• Manufacturing of beverages and spirits: wines, aperitifs, champagne, beer, fruit juices, soft drinks, mineral waters…

They accompany our clients in the agri-food sector -companies of all sizes, in a very operational way, for a temporary period (4 to 12 months) in:

• emergency managerial situations:
  • temporary replacement of a manager (CEO, CFO, HRD, plant, production, maintenance, quality, HSE, purchasing, supply chain, S&OP, customer service, marketing, R&D director, etc.)
  • temporary reinforcement of a team
  • crisis management
• leading a transformation project to rethink or modernize a site or production processes for example
• managing projects aimed at improving performance on a financial, industry management controlling, HR, IT (implementation of ERP, etc.) levels
• conducting complex projects (launch or closure of a site, implementation of an Employment Protection Plan (“PSE”), lean manufacturing/management approach, Six Sigma, Kaizen…)
• reorganization, restructuring, turnaround, merger or acquisition (M&A) programs
• bringing a specialized and specific expertise in:
  • Quality and/or Health, Safety and Environment – QHSE / HSE
  • Maintenance and New Works
  • Technical aspects
  • R&D
  • Social relations management
  • CSR
  • Communication
  • Digitalization
  • Payroll and HRIS
  • Legal aspects
  • …

Examples of positioning of our interim managers

Here are some examples of rapid and targeted provision of interim managers:

• Interim Plant Manager as part of a performance improvement plan
• Interim Quality, Health, Environment and Safety Manager as part of a QHSE performance improvement plan
• Interim Supply Chain Manager in the context of an M&A project
• Interim R&D Manager within the framework of the management of a strategic project
• Interim COO in charge of a project to integrate a new acquisition
• Interim Chief Financial Officer in charge of a carve out project
• Interim Human Resources Director in charge of an Employment Protection Plan (“PSE”)
• Chief Restructuring Officer in the context of the turnaround of an SME in financial difficulty
• Interim Production manager in operational reinforcement to manage a peak of activity
• Interim Chief Information Officer (CIO) in charge of the implementation of SAP
• Interim Marketing manager for the launch of a new range of innovative products
• Interim Payroll Manager for the implementation of a new HRIS