Food & Beverage

Leaders in food & beverage consulting services 

Food and beverage is one of the fundamental sectors of the world, one impacted by global agribusiness dynamics and long-term consumer trends in health, value and convenience. Throughout the value chain, manufacturers, retailers and investors are constantly finding new avenues to differentiate their offerings and deliver value to consumers. 

L.E.K. Consulting has completed more than 2,000 engagements in the food and beverage industry, including over 800 engagements in transaction support for private equity firms. We are a trusted advisor to leading global corporations and investors across the food and beverage value chain, playing a pivotal role in helping manufacturers and retailers drive profitable growth and effectively manage their costs.  

Achieving profitable growth is at the core of our strategic projects, and we help our clients develop and activate their growth strategies, capitalize on consumer trends, understand how to stretch their portfolios organically or move into new attractive segments through acquisition, pioneer new markets and product categories, improve operational efficiency, and optimize their expenditures. 

Key questions for food & beverage success 

Our experienced professionals have a deep understanding of food and beverage manufacturers’ business challenges in today’s marketplace, and we encourage these clients to ask themselves a few key questions: 

• How do we segment our consumers in light of evolving demographics, eating occasions and need states? 

• What is a differentiated value proposition to delight our customers and consumers? 

• How do we determine which underserved consumer needs, channels and product categories we can uniquely win in, or “Where to play”? 

• How do we develop a successful plan to achieve those growth objectives, or “How to win”? 

• What is our strategic market position, and how do we leverage our capabilities to enable future growth? 

• What is our ecommerce and digital strategy in the evolving channel landscape and be where consumers shop? 

• What is our pricing strategy, and how do we optimize our prices in an inflationary environment? 

• How does our price pack architecture need to evolve to better meet the needs of consumers and retail partners? 

• How can we optimize our trade spend in light of everyday low prices, evolving channel dynamics and changing consumer sentiment? 

• What capabilities should we build to more efficiently acquire and integrate companies in order to capture synergies? 

• How should we organize our resources to capitalize on evolving consumer needs and trends?