Q1. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your professional background, particularly focusing on your expertise in the industry?

I have spent more than 30 years in leadership roles within Food & Beverage and FMCG, building expertise in manufacturing operations, new plant commissioning, product development, regulatory compliance, quality, and food safety.

Throughout my career, I have led manufacturing excellence programs from start to finish, commissioned new plants and production lines, and scaled operations in fast-growing markets. I have made food safety a core part of both product and process design. Working closely with R&D and marketing, I have ensured that new products meet regulatory requirements, are robust in formulation, validated for shelf life, and ready for launch in multiple geographies.

I have managed compliance with a range of regulatory frameworks, including FSSAI, EU, GCC, FSMA, FSSC 22000, ISO 22000, and GFSI, especially in export-driven and multi-market supply chains. My approach is to translate these requirements into practical, scalable systems that support speed, resilience, and cost efficiency in manufacturing and quality.

Since 2024, I have been leading my own consulting firm, SAYA Consulting, through which I advise food and FMCG organizations on manufacturing excellence, food safety and quality system design, regulatory readiness, digital quality transformation, and operational scaling across growth markets. This work allows me to apply hands-on leadership experience to complex, real-world challenges faced by organizations navigating growth, compliance, and supply chain resilience.

My strength is in bringing together manufacturing, quality, project management, product development, and regulatory strategy into a unified operating model. This enables organizations to grow quickly while maintaining food safety, compliance, and operational performance.

 

Q2. Looking ahead to 2026, what emerging market trends in food safety regulations across East Europe, MEA, and India do you foresee most disrupting FMCG supply chains, why will they accelerate compliance costs? 

By 2026, food safety regulation will no longer be just a compliance function—it will become a proxy for geopolitics, trade protection, and supply security. As global markets reorganize politically into competing blocs, food regulations are increasingly being used as non-tariff trade barriers, and FMCG supply chains will feel the impact first.

Three main forces will reshape how FMCG companies operate in East Europe, MEA, and India:

Traceability will shift from “capability” to “permission to operate”

End-to-end, digitally verifiable traceability will shift from being a best practice to a basic requirement for market access. Regulators will expect near real-time visibility from the source of ingredients to the finished product.

Companies that cannot show strong data integrity across complex supplier networks risk losing access to premium and export markets, no matter how strong their product quality or brand.

Preventive food safety will replace inspection as the regulatory backbone

Countries that have relied on inspection and enforcement are now moving toward preventive control systems similar to FSMA. This raises expectations for robust validation, environmental monitoring, supplier risk management, and documented scientific justification.

The main cost is not in audits or certifications, but in building capability, discipline, and a mature culture—none of which can be developed overnight or purchased externally.

Regulatory fragmentation will replace harmonization

The idea that food standards would converge globally is proving incorrect. Instead, geopolitical shifts are causing regulatory fragmentation across the EU, Gulf, UK, and Asian trading blocs.

As a result, FMCG companies will need to manage multiple compliance models at the same time, which increases complexity, duplication, and the risk of regulatory errors.

The real disruption

Food safety is now a key factor in supply chain design. Compliance costs will rise, not just due to stricter standards, but because companies must rethink sourcing, manufacturing locations, digital systems, and supplier relationships to stay resilient in a changing geopolitical and regulatory environment.
Companies that see food safety only as a cost will face challenges. Those that make it part of their growth, trade, and resilience strategy will gain a significant advantage.

 

Q3. What approaches have proven most effective for building robust food safety and quality systems that scale across multiple factories in high-growth regions like East Europe, MEA, and India, which ones delivered strong results in rollout and why?

The most effective way to scale food safety systems across multiple factories is to avoid a “one-size-fits-all” rollout. What consistently works is a hub-and-spoke governance model, where food safety strategy is designed centrally, but ownership and execution sit across the entire business, not within supply chain or quality alone.

Central design broken down into clear, structured training

In successful organizations, global food safety standards, risk frameworks, and digital tools are designed centrally to ensure consistency and regulatory alignment. Critically, this central design is objectively broken down into clear, role-based training modules, covering:

• Mandated, non-negotiable standards that must be followed without exception
• Defined areas of flexibility where local adaptation is permitted
• Clear governance rules for decisions, deviations, and approvals

This clarity ensures every factory understands exactly what is required and prevents over-interpretation at plant level or uncontrolled customization.

Controlled local flexibility within defined guardrails

Factories operate in different regulatory, cultural, and capability environments. Allowing controlled flexibility within clearly defined guardrails enables faster adoption without compromising food safety intent. Any flexibility is documented, approved, and periodically reviewed, preventing gradual dilution of standards over time.

Risk-based prioritization of factories and processes

Not all factories or production lines carry the same level of food safety risk. High-risk products, complex technologies, export-facing sites, and new plants are prioritized using a risk-tiered maturity model. This allows organizations to focus resources where failures would be most damaging, rather than spreading effort evenly across all sites.

Capability-led implementation with business-wide ownership

Strong food safety systems are sustained when ownership lies with functional leadership across the business—including Manufacturing, Quality, Engineering, R&D, Procurement, and Commercial—not just within Supply Chain or Quality. Structured training, on-the-job coaching, and leadership accountability consistently delivered better outcomes than audit-driven compliance alone.

When plant managers and functional heads see food safety as part of their performance agenda, behaviors change permanently.

 

Q4. What optimizations in digital quality tools like SAP QM and E2E batch traceability delivered the strongest ROI in food supply chains, what succeeded, what faltered and why?

The highest returns from digital quality systems came not from large-scale system overhauls, but from focused, well-designed digital interventions that directly addressed business risk and decision-making.

What worked well

• Linking SAP QM with batch traceability, which enabled faster root-cause analysis, quicker recalls, and stronger regulatory confidence
• Digitizing deviations, CAPA, and complaints, reducing manual effort, shortening cycle times (TAT), and improving closure discipline
• Using simple analytics and supplier scorecards to focus attention on high-risk suppliers rather than spreading effort evenly

These improvements delivered value because they solved real operational and food safety problems, not because they made systems more complex.

What did not work

• Over-customizing SAP QM, which made systems rigid, expensive to maintain, and difficult to upgrade
• Weak master data discipline, which undermined traceability and eroded trust in system outputs
• Treating digital quality as an IT project, instead of a business transformation owned by operations and quality leadership

Why design matters at the global leadership level

Design choices made at the global leadership level determine success or failure. The most effective organizations took a pragmatic approach to SAP QM design, avoiding over-specification and consciously deciding which modules to implement and which to leave out. Not every available function adds value—unnecessary complexity increases cost and reduces usability.
These decisions worked best when they were made transparently within the leadership team, including Finance, so that cost, benefit, and long-term sustainability were clearly understood and agreed.

Execution makes or breaks value

Even the best system design fails without strong execution. Successful programs were well-supported cross-functionally, with clear ownership across Quality, Manufacturing, IT, Procurement, and Finance. Once decisions were made, leadership stayed the course and resisted continuous re-design.
In summary, ROI was highest when digital quality tools were simple by design, tightly linked to business risk, and consistently executed, rather than built for compliance optics or technical completeness.

 

Q5. What quality gates speed up food product launches while slashing recall risks, proven accelerators versus costly stumbles from reg mismatches and why?

The fastest and safest product launches are driven by a strong Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) discipline, where quality and regulatory checks are embedded from the very beginning—not added just before launch. Within PLM, the Quality function plays a critical gatekeeping role, ensuring speed without increasing recall or regulatory risk.

What consistently accelerated launches

Front-loaded regulatory and food safety risk assessment

The most effective organizations conduct regulatory and food safety risk assessments during the product design stage, not after formulation is finalized. This includes early evaluation of ingredients, additives, processing conditions, claims, and labeling requirements for each intended market.

Regulatory compliance is non-negotiable—unlike shelf life, it cannot be adjusted or “managed later.” Early regulatory clarity prevents costly reformulation, relabeling, or market withdrawals late in the launch cycle.

Quality-led gates within PLM

Successful companies build standardized quality gates directly into the PLM process, covering:

• Formulation and ingredient approval
• Supplier qualification and risk assessment
• Regulatory compliance and label validation
• Food safety risk and process readiness

These gates ensure that products move forward only when mandatory requirements are met, rather than relying on downstream checks under time pressure.

Market-wise regulatory pre-checklists

A major accelerator is the use of market-specific regulatory checklists built into PLM. These clearly define requirements for each country or region—such as ingredient limits, labeling language, claims, nutritional declarations, and local approvals.

This avoids the common mistake of assuming that a product approved in one market will automatically be acceptable in another.

Early shelf-life and abuse testing

Early shelf-life and abuse testing—especially for emerging markets with weak cold chains—helps teams make informed trade-offs. Shelf life can often be optimized, extended, or negotiated through packaging, distribution controls, or storage conditions.

However, shelf-life decisions must be based on data generated early, not assumptions made close to launch.

Where launches typically stumble

Costly delays and failures usually occurred due to:

• Late regulatory engagement, forcing last-minute formulation or label changes
• Region-specific labeling gaps, discovered too late to correct without delay
• The assumption that “approved elsewhere” equals “approved everywhere”, which is rarely true

These stumbles are expensive because regulatory issues discovered late in PLM disrupt supply chains, delay launches, and damage credibility with regulators and customers.

The core lesson

In PLM, shelf life can be negotiated; regulatory compliance cannot. The fastest launches happen when regulatory and quality checks are performed early, market-wise, and systematically, rather than treated as final hurdles before commercialization.
When quality is positioned as an early enabler within PLM, organizations gain both speed and safety—without trading one off against the other.

 

Q6. What process enhancements drive the highest productivity gains in food manufacturing, what worked in efficiency improvements?

The most sustainable productivity gains in food manufacturing came from Right-First-Time (RFT) quality, minimum intervention, and deliberate reduction of operational complexity—especially through SKU rationalization.

Right-First-Time (RFT) quality through defect prevention

RFT focuses on producing the right product the first time, rather than relying on inspection and rework. Stable processes, validated operating windows, and error-proofing reduced rework, deviations, and quality holds—unlocking capacity without capital investment.

Typical impact:

• 20–40% reduction in rework and quality holds
• 1–2% improvement in overall line efficiency
• Lower cost of poor quality (COPQ OR Non-Quality Costs)

Line-level standardization and minimal intervention

Standardized line conditions and SMED linked to quality KPIs reduced startup losses and manual adjustments. Fewer interventions meant fewer errors, less scrap, and faster stabilization after changeovers.

Typical impact:

• 15–30% reduction in startup losses
• Shorter changeovers with higher first-pass yield
• Reduced operator dependency

Data-based elimination of chronic quality losses

By targeting recurring quality-related downtime and deviations using simple data, plants eliminated chronic losses rather than firefighting daily issues.

Typical impact:

• 1–3% increase in effective capacity
• Fewer emergency interventions and overtime costs

SKU rationalization: the hidden productivity and cost lever

Excessive SKU complexity is one of the biggest enemies of RFT. Low-volume SKUs, minor formulation differences, and multiple pack variants increase changeovers, error risk, inventory, and working capital.

Financial impact examples of SKU rationalization:

Eliminating 10–20% of low-volume SKUs typically delivers:

• 20–30% reduction in changeovers
• 1–2% absolute improvement in line OEE
• 10–15% reduction in scrap and obsolescence

Packaging and material standardization often reduces:

• Inventory carrying costs by 15–25%
• Working capital tied up in slow-moving SKUs

Simpler SKU portfolios reduce:

• Forecast errors
• Expedited freight and rework costs
• Regulatory and labeling complexity

In many cases, the profit contribution of marginal SKUs is outweighed by the hidden manufacturing, quality, and supply chain costs they create.
Finance as a critical enabler of RFT and complexity reduction

SKU rationalization succeeds only when Finance plays an active, cross-functional role. Finance helps make visible the true cost of complexity—beyond revenue and gross margin—by quantifying:

• Cost of poor quality and rework
• Lost capacity due to frequent changeovers
• Inventory and obsolescence costs
• Compliance and regulatory overhead

When Quality, Operations, Commercial, and Finance align on common metrics—such as RFT, COPQ, quality-related downtime, and net SKU profitability—decision-making shifts from volume growth to value creation.

The core takeaway

Sustainable productivity does not come from doing more—it comes from doing fewer things, better.
Right-First-Time quality, minimum intervention, and disciplined SKU rationalization—supported by strong financial insight—create stable factories that deliver both efficiency and food safety at scale.

Q7. If you were an investor looking at companies within the space, what critical question would you pose to their senior management?

“Can your food safety and quality systems scale with your growth—without increasing operational complexity, compliance cost, or recall risk?”
This question goes to the core of long-term value creation. It helps distinguish whether quality is being managed as a strategic capability or merely as a compliance requirement.

A strong management team should be able to clearly explain how Right-First-Time quality is embedded into product design and manufacturing, how SKU and portfolio complexity are actively governed, and how digital systems are used to support decision-making rather than add bureaucracy. It should also demonstrate clear alignment between Quality, Operations, Commercial, and Finance through shared performance metrics.

In contrast, an over-reliance on audit scores or certifications alone often masks underlying operational and regulatory risk.

For an investor, the ability to scale growth without losing control of quality and compliance is one of the clearest indicators that current performance can translate into sustainable, resilient earnings over the long term.