Report

Gartner®: Market Overview for PLM Software in Food and Beverage Manufacturing

The 2026 Gartner® Market Overview for PLM Software in Food and Beverage Manufacturing outlines how the market is shifting from fragmented point solutions toward connected, AI-enabled product platforms. It highlights why purpose-built PLM has become essential to managing cost pressure, supply chain volatility, and mounting regulatory complexity.

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In this Gartner® report, we think you’ll learn:

  • Why the F&B PLM market is consolidating, as vendors combine industry-specific capabilities and acquire AI tools to build more comprehensive, intelligent platforms.
  • How agentic AI is being built into formulation, quality, compliance, and supplier management workflows to support faster, more autonomous product development.
  • Why volatile ingredient pricing and supply constraints are driving demand for advanced simulation tools that can instantly assess the cost, nutrition, and compliance impact of ingredient substitutions.
  • How mandates such as the U.S. FSMA 204 and the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) are pushing manufacturers toward end-to-end digital traceability, automated extended producer responsibility reporting, and smart labeling.
  • Why growing consumer demand for personalized taste and nutrition is forcing manufacturers to rethink configuration rules for formulation and packaging bills of materials.

Gartner, Market Overview for PLM Software in Food and Beverage Manufacturing, Brady Barnes, Rajan Saini, Claudia Clemens, 18 August 2026.

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Specright: A Cool Vendor

First recognized as a Cool Vendor in Supply Chain (2020), 

Specright now serves major food and beverage, consumer packaged goods, retailers, manufacturers, and packaging suppliers and more, helping them digitize and standardize specification data and transform product innovation to meet today’s sustainability, compliance, and operational demands.

“Specright enables us to track everything from the early stags of development, to production and end of life. Preparing to use Specright forced us to hold up a mirror and absorb a lot of reflective moments. It was very eye-opening and we feel much better prepared for the future now.”

Brittny Ohr
Director of Product Management, Sugar Foods

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