Consumers, Retailers Changing Equipment Landscape

Perhaps more important than these factors are the specific purchase criteria that food processors use to select their equipment. While the “factors” had more to do with the equipment company, these criteria are aimed at the actual equipment and its performance. Eleven criteria were provided to the survey participants. Some overlapped with the aforementioned “factors” while others were independent.

Once again, meeting specifications led the field as respondents listed their key criteria for equipment selection. Quality, in this case machine quality, was the second leading criteria among the food processing respondents. Processing cost factors make up three of the next four key criteria; yield, throughput and operating costs. Equipment price was a top-two-box criteria with only 28 percent of the respondents. Interestingly, “service and support” was not listed as one of the key criteria for equipment selection in spite of “parts and installation service” being the second and third most important “factors” listed. This apparent dichotomy may deal with the “quality” criteria of the purchase selection. That is, food processors expect the company to supply quality equipment that is dependable, but also to have the parts required for scheduled maintenance and know-how to get their equipment up and running after initial purchase.

The type of information presented here is not readily available. For this reason, Lyco Manufacturing commissioned the “Trends in Food Processing & Equipment Survey.”

Richard A. Carman is managing director in the Northbrook, Ill., office of Dechert-Hampe & Co., a sales and marketing consulting firm. Reached him at [email protected].