Enhanced formulations are reshaping food and beverage production, but where their strain registers depends on the vantage point. For the companies running the lines, the impact is already operational. For the OEMs supplying them, equipment demand looks comparatively steady. The reason lies in how end users handle complexity before they ever call a supplier.
According to PMMI’s The Formulation Effect: Impacts on Food & Beverage Production, Equipment and Investment white paper, 61% of end users say enhanced nutritional and functional formulations have had at least a moderate impact on their operations, including 29% who report a lot or a great deal of impact. Only 11% report no impact at all.
OEMs see it differently when the question turns to equipment. Just 37% say these formulations have had at least a moderate impact on their customers’ equipment needs, while 63% report little or no effect.
The report suggests the gap is partly a matter of sequence: end users tend to solve formulation problems with the systems they already have before approaching a supplier. Nearly all end users (97%) say they make manufacturing process adjustments at least sometimes when producing enhanced formulations, and 52% say adjustments are needed often or always.
Equipment requests follow a different rhythm: among OEMs, only 4% say customers require modifications or new capabilities often, while 37% say rarely and 16% say never.
One end user described the order of operations plainly. “First and foremost, instead of buying new equipment, we see if we can modify—change the cleaning parameters, the time or temperature, chemical concentrations…Buying new equipment would be the last resort because it’s an investment,” a regional QA manager says.
From the supplier side, that behavior registers as quiet. “We know they’re doing it, but none of our customers are coming back saying, ‘We need something changed. It’s not working. Conveyors are behaving differently,’” a director of engineering at an OEM says.
For OEMs, the takeaway is that quiet equipment demand can mask real operational need. The strain is already being managed on the plant floor, often invisibly, through process adjustments that come before any purchase.
Suppliers who help customers recognize when those adjustments have run their course, and when a targeted modification or new system would serve them better, stand to meet demand that current signals understate.
SOURCE: 2026 The Formulation Effect: Impacts on Food & Beverage Production, Equipment and Investment
For more insights from PMMI’s Business Intelligence team, find reports, including The Formulation Effect: Impacts on Food & Beverage Production, Equipment and Investment, Robotics in Packaging & Processing, and Managing Obsolescence at https://www.pmmi.org/business-intelligence.
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