Food and drink producers
Food and drink producer software
The production room on one screen. Every batch and what it yielded, every ingredient lot in and every customer out, one current specification per product, and the packaging components with their materials and weights. Built for the way your week already runs, hosted in the UK, and looked after by the people who built it.
What a producer actually tracks
Five records, one jar
- Batches made, and the yield against target
- Ingredient lots in, and the customers out
- Recipe, allergens and shelf life, one version
- Packaging components, materials and weights
- Month end, straight off the records
Five records describing the same product, usually kept in three or four different places.
A production system answers "what went into that batch, and where did it go" without anybody going to find out. One product is one record: the recipe, the allergens declared off it, the shelf life, and the components it is packed in with their weights by material.
Plenty of producers run all of that on spreadsheets, and it got them this far. Plenty more have stock or production software for part of it and a sheet for the rest, because the packaging weights were never in scope for that software. The question is whether the record is written as the work happens, or afterwards.
A first system might cover one kitchen and twenty products. The same system two years on can carry several lines, contract packing for other brands with their own specifications, and retailer formats exported straight out of it.
What you would be looking at, in the order a week happens
Six screens from our own example system. Real screens rather than mock-ups, and every firm, product, batch, lot and customer in them is invented. Yours would carry your products, your lines and your words for things.
What the rules ask for
Extended producer responsibility for packaging puts the cost of dealing with household packaging waste on the producer, and from the 2027 assessment year the fee depends on how recyclable that packaging is. PackUK published the recyclability assessment methodology for 2027 on 1 July 2026. It covers household packaging placed on the UK market from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2027.
Which duty you carry depends on size rather than on what you make. Large producers, meaning more than fifty tonnes of packaging and more than two million pounds of annual turnover, are the ones legally required to use the 2027 method and report a rating. Between twenty-five and fifty tonnes, or under two million pounds of turnover, the duty is to report data once a year with no rating fee attached. Under twenty-five tonnes of packaging there is no obligation at all.
| A weight per component, by material | Not one weight for the pack. The jar, the closure, the label and the outer case are four lines, each with its own material, because that is the shape the assessment works in. |
|---|---|
| An assessment year, not a date | 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2027. What matters is that the packaging placed on the market through that year can be described afterwards, which is a records problem rather than a deadline problem. |
| A rating that moves the fee | Red-rated material carries a multiplier on the disposal fee: 1.2 for the 2026 to 2027 assessment year, 1.6 for 2027 to 2028 and 2.0 for 2028 to 2029. Amber is unchanged and green gets a discount. Which rating packaging earns comes from the packaging, not from software. |
| Reported every six months | Large producers report twice a year. The published deadlines run to 1 April 2027 for the second half of 2026, and the January to June period has fallen due on 1 October in every year published so far. |
None of that is hard once the component weights are captured against the product they belong to. It is only hard when they have to be reconstructed from three files in the week the return is due.
We build the records, not the legal advice. The dates and figures above are from the GOV.UK guidance on the recyclability assessment methodology (RAM) 2027, published 1 July 2026 and last updated 20 August 2026, from PackUK's modulated disposal fees statement, and from the guidance on who must comply. Check your own obligations with your regulator, and if a date moves we will say so.
Who it suits, and who it doesn't
Where this kind of system earns its keep
- Small batch production: bakeries, dairies, sauce and preserve makers, breweries, distilleries, roasters
- Packing your own product, or somebody else's
- Retailer or wholesale customers who ask for specifications
- Allergen claims that have to hold up
- Packaging weights that currently live in a file of their own
Where we fit best
If two of you make everything, you can keep track of it between you for a long time. The system earns its keep once a batch needs tracing quickly by someone other than the person who made it, and a first step can be the batch record on its own.
If you run an ERP with a technical department behind it, keep it. We build what still sits beside it, the parts it was never built for, and join the two where it allows.
And if what you want is one system across production, warehousing and accounts, that is a real project with a real budget, quoted as one.
AI features can be built in where they save time, such as a supplier's certificate or specification read and checked against the ingredient's record, with anything out of date flagged. More on AI and automation.
Usually built alongside stock and batch control, compliance and inspection records or document and specification management. The rest are on the services page.
Ask about our free Business Systems Assessment
An hour with whoever runs the day to day. Clear recommendations to act on.
We look at how the work actually runs and what it runs on, then send you a list of what we would change, what each change would do for the business, and what it would take. In person or online, whichever suits you. Nothing to pay, nothing to sign.
- One hour
- In person or online
- Recommendations we talk you through
Honest answers
- Does this make us compliant?
- No system does that on its own. What it does is hold the records in the shape the rules describe: a component weight per material against the product it belongs to, one current specification, and a traceable batch. The obligation stays yours, and the advice comes from your regulator or your consultant.
- We pay a consultant for the packaging return.
- Then keep them, and send them a file that is already complete. They charge for handling the file you maintain, so the better the file, the less of their time it takes and the less there is to argue about.
- Our retailer sends us their own specification format.
- That carries on. The product record holds one current version, and an export can be shaped to the format a customer asks for, so nothing gets typed into a second document that then disagrees with the first.
- Our people won't use it on the line.
- They use a phone all day already. There is nothing to install, the batch sheet is less writing than the paper one, and we take them through it before go-live rather than leaving you to explain it.
- How long does it take?
- A first system is weeks rather than months, and bigger ones go live in pieces so the useful part arrives early. Scope, price and dates are agreed in writing before anything starts, with what is not included written as plainly as what is.
Talk to us
Tell us how the batch records and the packaging weights are kept now, and what you would want to see that you cannot. That is usually enough to say whether we can help.
Ring, 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and Saturday mornings, or use the form below. Pick what you'd like to keep track of, add a line if you want to, and leave a name and a way to reach you.