In many UK food businesses, the reality is:

👉 Spend is still decentralised across sites
👉 Supplier bases have grown organically over time
👉Categories like PPE, couriers, labs and chemicals are lightly managed
👉Data exists but isn’t actionable

That’s not control, its just visibility.. at best. And even that is often delayed.

Meanwhile, external pressure continues:

‼️Input costs still rising in key categories
‼️Labour and compliance costs increasing
‼️Retailers resisting further price increases

So the margin gap has to come from somewhere.

In many cases, procurement maturity hasn’t kept pace with financial expectations, and that gap is now visible at EBITDA level.