The Sustainability Tightrope: Cutting Costs Without Cutting Corners

How food and beverage companies can drive down costs while meeting rising sustainability expectations

In a tough economic climate, food and beverage companies are under pressure to cut costs and stay competitive. But as cost control takes centre stage, sustainability goals risk being sidelined.

Integrating sustainability into procurement can cut costs by up to 16%, according to a recent report by Rabobank.¹ The challenge, and the opportunity, is finding the strategies that deliver both impact and efficiency.

With Sustained, the two can work together. Our platform delivers product-level environmental insights at scale, helping you reduce costs, respond to customer demands, and future-proof your business, all with measurable return on investment.

The Balancing Act: Costs, Market Demands and Regulations

Food businesses face growing pressure from multiple directions:

• Operational costs continue to rise.
• Customers and consumers expect transparency and lower-impact products.
• Procurement teams are embedding environmental criteria into supplier selection.
• Regulation is accelerating - from Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to future-facing tools like Digital Product Passports (DPP).

While DPP and similar frameworks currently target packaging and electronics, they signal a broader shift toward product-level transparency. In this environment, companies need to make smart trade-offs. Cutting costs by ignoring sustainability creates risk: damaged brand reputation, strained customer relationships, compliance issues, and lost bids. But sustainability done right can deliver both compliance and commercial advantage.

Targeted, Data-Driven Efficiency

While optimising resource use within your own operations (such as reducing energy and water consumption or minimising waste) can contribute to cost savings, the biggest environmental and cost savings often sit within your supply chain.

Sustained helps you identify and act on those opportunities, moving from estimates to accurate, product-level data. Our platform helps to pinpoint where environmental and financial inefficiencies overlap, enabling you to work collaboratively with suppliers to implement impactful changes.

Key use cases include:

• Strategic Sourcing: Evaluating the environmental and cost implications of sourcing ingredients from different regions, allowing you to make informed decisions that minimise both expenses and emissions.
• Supply Chain Optimisation: Streamlining transportation routes, consolidating shipments, and exploring alternative logistics solutions to reduce both costs and the environmental footprint of your distribution network.
• Ingredient Substitution: Identifying opportunities to replace high-impact, expensive ingredients with lower-impact, cost-effective alternatives, without compromising product quality or taste.
• Eco-Design for Value: Utilising product lifecycle data to reformulate products and redesign packaging for reduced environmental impact and cost, creating a virtuous cycle of sustainability and profitability.

By focusing on these supply chain-oriented strategies, Sustained helps food businesses unlock significant cost savings while simultaneously driving down their environmental footprint and building a more resilient and sustainable operation.

Sustainability as a Competitive Advantage

Sustainability is no longer a marketing angle or a compliance requirement; it's a powerful differentiator. Companies that embrace sustainability can develop unique, sustainable products that stand out in the market.

Consumers, particularly younger generations, are increasingly looking for products with verifiable environmental benefits. By developing innovative, sustainable products with reduced environmental footprints, companies can tap into this growing market segment and cultivate stronger brand loyalty. Transparency and authenticity in sustainability efforts are essential for building trust. Companies that effectively communicate their environmental commitments and achievements can enhance their brand reputation, attract and retain customers, and foster a positive brand image. This requires going beyond superficial claims and providing verifiable data to support sustainability assertions, as consumers and retailers alike are becoming more adept at spotting "greenwashing".  

Collaborating with suppliers who share a commitment to sustainability can create a more resilient and ethical supply chain, reducing risks and enhancing efficiency. Major retailers are also setting ambitious sustainability targets and incorporating environmental criteria into their procurement processes. Food and beverage companies that can provide detailed sustainability data and demonstrate a commitment to reducing their environmental footprint are more likely to secure contracts and maintain strong relationships with these key distribution channels.

In today’s market, sustainability isn’t a burden. It’s a lever.

With Sustained, you can use environmental data to improve products, strengthen partnerships, and reduce costs, all while preparing for what’s ahead.

Book a demo to see how Sustained helps food and beverage businesses turn impact into opportunity.

¹ Source: Rabobank – Opportunities to Cut Costs and Carbon in Food and Beverage