Food and Beverage

Expertise

Finding balance between success today and growth tomorrow

From intense competition and shifts in customer trends to cost fluctuations and compliance pressures, the food and beverage industry is rapidly evolving, and there’s no secret formula for success. Whether you’re balancing a mature portfolio of brands, focusing on fast growth, navigating complex issues like IRA tax credits and operational technologies, or contemplating a transaction, our consultants have an in-depth understanding of your concerns and your need for specialized solutions.

With decades of experience, our national practice serves middle-market privately held, family-owned, and private equity-owned companies across all facets of the food and beverage value chain, including production, processing, packaging, distribution, and logistics. We also specialize in serving customers in the retail, restaurant, and franchise areas. From startup entities to national brands, our diverse range of clients includes growers, confectioners, breweries, wineries, and processors of frozen food, snack food, protein, nutraceuticals, and dairy products, among others.

Made-to-order solutions

Our food and beverage accounting and consulting experts will help your business thrive today and into the future. Let us help you navigate the industry’s top challenges.

Boost profitability with cost and margin intelligence

Our cost and margin intelligence team will help you understand where you make money, where you don’t, and what it costs to serve your customers, while our data analytics team will help you transform this data into actionable insights to improve performance.

Enhance your tax position and keep up with regulatory compliance standards

Is your tax position optimized for today’s needs and tomorrow’s opportunities? Our tax team covers every area of food and beverage industry regulations and compliance including risk and liability assessments, R&D tax credits, Section 45x tax credits, state and local nexus assessments, transfer pricing and cost segregation, and international regulations. From proactive tax planning to preparation for liquidity events, our experts have you covered.

Integrate technology for better decision making

Is your technology infrastructure generating efficiencies, gathering accurate data, and helping drive informed decisions? Can your system support productivity-enhancing technology like AI? Whether you want more value from your current system or need to replace it with a new system, our experts will help guide you through ERP assessment, implementation, and selection.

Mitigate ongoing supply chain issues

Is your supply chain responsive and agile? We have the expertise to help you improve your supply chain performance, including planning and forecasting, sourcing and supplier management, distribution logistics, inventory management, and more. We’ll work alongside you to develop a supply chain strategy that reduces risk and disruption, improves visibility, and increases your ability to meet customer expectations.

Protect your organization from cybersecurity risk

Is your sensitive data adequately protected? Are your systems strong enough to withstand a cyberattack? Our cybersecurity experts will evaluate the strength of your cybersecurity program and help you fortify any weaknesses. Cybersecurity isn’t just a job for the IT team — everyone who uses technology in your company plays a vital role in protecting the company from cyberthreats. We’ll align your people, processes, and policies to minimize vulnerabilities and maximize defenses.

Uncover M&A opportunities and plan for a transaction

Are you considering a merger, acquisition, or sale of your food and beverage business? Do you need to secure financing to realize capital investment projects? We’ll help you understand every aspect of your transaction to ensure maximum value. As your single source for transaction advisory, our team has expertise in succession planning, buy- and sell-side strategy, due diligence, valuation, pre- and post-acquisition integration, divestitures, and carve-outs. If you’re planning an exit, our Wealth Management team can also help you develop a personal financial strategy that brings maximum results for your business and family.

Discover strategies to manage trade & tariff impacts

See how we’ll help

Solutions

Our accounting and consulting experts have the deep food and beverage industry knowledge needed to address your organization’s unique situation. We’ll help you ensure you’re operating at peak performance and ready for whatever comes next.

Upcoming Events & Webinars

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Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025

Buy- and sell-side transaction considerations for state and local tax

State and local taxes are often overlooked during a transaction, creating risk for buyers and sellers. Join our webinar to learn how these tax rules affect transactions and how to potentially mitigate tax risk on the buy and sell side.

Webinar / 1 hour watch

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025

Taking it home: Strategic Section 1202 exit planning

Explore advanced Section 1202 strategies to optimize tax savings through smart exit planning, including rollovers, gifting, timing, and Section 1045 integration. Join our specialists in this webinar to hear all the details.

Webinar / 1 hour watch

Insights

More Insights

Food and beverage CPG professional assessing costs for new product line.

When costing mistakes eat into food business margins

Article / 3 min read

Food and beverage CPG professionals discussing operational costs.

Landing space on big-box store shelves: Assessing food business costs and margins

Article / 4 min read

Shopper looking at products in grocery store aisle, considering SKU rationalization and accurate costing data.

The art of SKU rationalization: Getting accurate costing data

Article / 5 min read

Tariff mitigation strategies to ensure resilience and growth

Article / 5 min read

Tax policy perspectives: June 2025

Article / 20 min read

Managing compliance with IRA credit prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements

Article / 15 min read

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Case Studies

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Two children under a kitchen table eating Better Made chips

June 05, 2024

Better Made Snack Foods: Keeping little traditions going strong

Better Made snacks have been beloved by millions since 1930. While they’re famous for consistently delicious potato chips, they’ve captured hearts by making those little moments for families and friends even more special. Here’s how they count on us.

Case Study / 4 min watch

Exterior photo of a New Belgium Brewing Company location

June 04, 2024

New Belgium Brewing Company: How we champion big celebrations

For over 30 years, New Belgium Brewing Company has been a cornerstone of the craft brewing industry. They’ve experienced tremendous growth and many changes — and through it all, they’ve counted on us to help keep making world-class beer. Here’s how.

Case Study / 3 min watch

September 03, 2019

Food company achieves successful sale in the midst of massive growth

A middle-market-branded food company was experiencing exponential growth while simultaneously preparing for a sale. Here's how they successfully closed the transaction and met new public company regulations.

Case Study / 1 min read

Client Experience

The food industry partner you never knew you needed

Our clients receive the best of both worlds: the flexibility and personal touch you’d expect from smaller firm, and the resources we bring as a national firm. Each client relationship is unique and scalable. You can trust that we’ll be more than your service provider — we’ll be your partner and confidant.

Clients also love that they don’t need to train our staff. We already know the industry, and we put in the work to understand your unique business. We’ve been on the Fortune “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for the last couple decades, so our staff tends to stick around — you won’t find a revolving door of account managers here, but you will find the unexpected value of having a trusted partner to confide in. As our food and beverage industry leader, Paul Edwards, puts it, “It’s not what we do, it’s how we do it.”

Sean Zecman

President, National Food Group

We felt like their values aligned totally with our values. There’s tremendous alignment and accessibility. We needed somebody that did more than just review our accounting and financial statements once a year. We needed support throughout the year — and Plante Moran provided that. They opened our eyes to new opportunities.