When Supply Assurance is Top of Mind, Partnering with Ingredient Experts Can Provide Peace of Mind
While supply chain stability has always been a strategic mandate for CPG brands and manufacturers, a growing number of variables1 is making that stability more of a moving target. Manufacturers are contending with increasing supply unpredictability and resulting cost pressures while striving to meet rising consumer expectations. Factor in economic volatility, pressures to meet sustainability and environmental goals and managing ingredient scarcity, and many organizations are seeking out partners that are equipped to address multiple factors impacting supply chains to help improve resilience across all areas of the organization. In fact, more than 95% of 400 brands recently interviewed by Ardent Mills stated that supply chain reliability was of high or medium priority for their business.2
The road to reformulation
As product brands seek to stabilize supply and win with consumers in an increasingly cluttered food landscape, reformulation can be a strategic path to both operational and sales success. Integrating new ingredients to replace those that may be costly, unreliable, environmentally challenging or no longer consumer preferred can infuse new life into portfolios and eliminate or reduce ingredients driving up costs or diminishing consistency. But there can also be risks. “We talk with customers on a regular basis who want to reformulate to help simplify their labels, improve the nutrition of a product or stabilize their operations through cost-effective ingredient choices,” said Kurt Long, vice president, Emerging Nutrition, Ardent Mills. “The solution is to work with an ingredient expert like Ardent Mills that has proven experience in maintaining the flavor, texture and other sensory mandates of a product while achieving the operational goals established by the customer.”
For Ardent Mills, this means an end-to-end supply assurance approach that starts with investing in grower relationships and ends with cost-effective, quality products consumers purchase consistently.
Proven ingredient expertise, backed by an unmatched domestic footprint
“Our heritage is ingredient expertise,” added Long. “From flours and grains to pulses and blends, our teams span technical support, research and development, risk and emerging nutrition and collaborate to help customers understand how to optimize ingredients for their operational and sensory goals. We provide customers with a modern understanding of the factors that drive quality, taste and functionality.”
With the largest domestic footprint, Ardent Mills’ extensive network of facilities and partners offers customers peace of mind — ensuring ingredient consistency, reliability, agility with built-in redundancies and contingencies, and the ability to scale with confidence. “We have best practices, redundancies and flexible contingency plans built into our own operations and supply chain so that our customers can count on us to deliver what they need, when they need it,” said Long.
Ingredient innovation with a future focus
Integral to Ardent Mills’ supply assurance strategy is to innovate ingredient solutions that help customers address cost unpredictability, ingredient scarcity and evolving consumer preferences. Recent innovations like our growing line of replacers – including Ardent Mills® Egg Replace and Cocoa Replace – are paving the way for brands to build consistency and reliability into their supply chains without sacrificing performance. “Our line of replacers can replace a portion of often costly or hard-to-source ingredients, like eggs and cocoa,” added Long. Both products underwent exhaustive sensory testing to ensure that the solutions are consumer approved and in line with today’s taste, appearance and performance expectations.3
How to Get Started - A Partner Checklist
If you're ready to optimize your supply chain strategies to improve resilience in the face of growing challenges, we're ready to help you begin. Start by asking your supplier partners about their investments in supply assurance and operational excellence.
✓ Describe your grower relationships and how those impact your ability to source ingredients and test them for consistency, quality and other factors.
✓ Change agility is important for success. What is your change agility philosophy and how does that come to life in your supply assurance strategies?
✓ Explain the redundancies and contingencies you have built into your own supply chain.
✓ What capabilities and facilities have you invested in recently to improve reliability, cost effectiveness and quality for your customers?
✓ Describe any recent product or process innovations you have brought to market to help customers directly improve supply chain success.
✓ Talk about the size and scale of your national/global footprint and how your footprint allows you to serve your customers.
✓ Consumer proximity is a must. How do you stay close to consumer insights and help customers leverage them for the improvement of their portfolios?
✓ What is your experience with ingredient sourcing, testing and optimization?
✓ What specific teams do you have in place to help with optimizing the various elements of the supply chain?
✓ What do you consider to be the most significant challenges customers face today related to supply assurance and how do you help to solve them?
To learn more about Ardent Mills' approach to solving today's most pressing supply chain challenges, visit us here.
1. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/cost-resilience-new-supply-chain-challenge
2. Ardent Mills Proprietary Research, Brand Health Study (cy ‘25/fy ‘26); Q. Thinking broadly across your business, how would you prioritize the following topics when it comes to your company’s ingredient needs? R. High Priority, Medium, Low, Not a Priority
3. *Based on tests conducted by FMSS, Inc., a CLT with 54 consumers and a sensory screening by a highly trained sensory panel.