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Adapt or Fall Behind: Emerging Pressures Redefining the
Future of Food Manufacturing

What executives really want from Finance, and how to deliver it without burning out your team.

Executive Requests Feel different in 2026

Executives and Owners don’t just want growth – they want evidence of performance and transparency into issues. Without compromise, they want visibility at lower levels of detail, delivered at a predictable cadence, and tied to credible actions. For finance, that means dramatically raising the bar on reporting quality, speed, and explainability without adding headcount every quarter or suffering consistent turnover.  Across our customer base, executive expectations are clear: 
  • Growth pressure plus data discipline. 
  • Board packets that move beyond simple commentary to granular, SKU-Level comparatives.
  • An operating rhythm that supports monthly – even weekly Q&A on the drivers, not just the totals.

→ Learn more about this webinar with Roskam Foods –

What “Good” Looks Like to Today


What “Good” Looks Like to Today

1) Cadence & Consistency 

  • Monthly board packages that leverage a standard structure across financial and management reporting; AKA P&L, cash, working capital, SKU / customer / category profitability, price / volume / mix, and plant performance – preferably aligned together with forecasts.  
  • Weekly flash signals on volume, mix, production variances, and overhead with clear ownership and transparency. 

2) Line of Sight to Value Creation 

  • Visibility that connects SKU profitability to pricing actions and category / customer strategy. 
  • Forecasts that can be iterated more frequently and reflect demand / mix shifts. 

3) One Set of Numbers 

  • A unified platform and governed model ensuring that Finance, Operations, Commercial, and Executives see the same numbers—refreshed, reconciled, and traceable. 

Client Example

Client Example

In early 2025, one of our Food Manufacturing clients implemented OneStream to support the unification of their Consolidation, Financial Reporting, Management Reporting, Annual Planning, Forecasting and SKU-Level Profitability Analysis.  

With all of these financial processes aligned together in a single system, the finance team was able to present a SKU-Level profitability view for the 2026 budget that the board and executive team could immediately use. This analysis: 

  • Identified underperforming categories/customers, 
  • Supported targeted price increases on products where margins were thin, and 
  • Created a shared base of accurate data that simplified conversations across sales, operations, and ownership. 

In addition, by standing up Weekly Plant Reporting with a oneclick refresh, the team moved the organization from “postmortem” reviews to realtime course correction—an enormous value to their most important stakeholders and investors. 

Imagine All of This Automated:

Imagine all of this Automated:

  • Core Reporting (Monthly): 
    1. Consolidated P&L with Bridgewalk (actual vs. budget vs. forecast) 
    2. Cash & Working Capital dashboard (DSO/DPO/Inventory days) 
    3. SKU/Customer/Category Margin with Price/Mix waterfall
    4. Plant Performance: throughput, production variances, overhead
    5. Capex Tracker with ROI and stage gates 
    6. Top 10 Risk & Opportunities Log 
  • Flash Analysis (Weekly): 
    1. Volume vs. Plan, Mix Shifts, key variance accounts, overhead spend vs. targets 
    2. Heatmap of exceptions and owners’ next actions 
  • Governance: 
    1. Close calendar with SLAs; single data model; change log; audit trail 
    2. Defined decision rights for pricing, capex, and labor 

The Culture Shift

The value of a unified platform like OneStream is it empowers your organization to behave differently: 

  • Finance evolves from Scorekeeper to Sense and Respond Nerve Center. 
  • Operations receives direct line of sight to what matters most and can communicate issues proactively. 
  • Commercial engages with finance on Facts and Details not just Anecdotes. 
  • The board sees a team that is predictable, transparent, and decisive. 

“Executives don’t just want numbers — they want an operating rhythm that produces numbers and analyses they can trust.” 

Want to see an example of this in the real world? Join our April webinar with Roskam Foods. They’ll highlight the process improvements to their Close and Planning processes, the value of SKU-Level profitability, and the new reporting cadence that their Executives can’t live without.

→ Register here: Food Webinar Registration Food Webinar Registration