The Invisible Plant Tax: Why Proactive, Collaborative Execution Drives Food Safety and Performance

Food and beverage manufacturers have more digital tools and data than ever — yet plants still rely on reactive effort and manual coordination to protect food safety and performance. The issue isn’t technology adoption. It’s disconnected execution.

In this session, SafetyChain and Westrock Coffee Company explore the Invisible Plant Tax: the time, risk, and operational drag created when teams reconcile information across separate systems, rely on manual workarounds, and validate supplier data after the fact.

You’ll learn why documentation and analytics alone cannot make food safety proactive or collaborative — and how embedding controls into daily execution aligns Quality, Operations, and Suppliers in real time.

This conversation moves beyond compliance and dashboards to focus on what senior leaders care about most: resilient execution, reduced friction, and plant-wide performance that holds up under audits, turnover, and growth.

Key Takeaways

• What the Invisible Plant Tax looks like in day-to-day plant operations
  

• Why food safety challenges are often execution issues, not compliance failures
  

• The difference between documentation, analytics, and execution-aligned systems
  

Who Should Attend

• Owners and senior leaders in food & beverage manufacturing
  

• VPs and Directors of Operations, Manufacturing, or Quality
  Plant Managers and Continuous Improvement leaders
  

• Leaders responsible for supplier performance and plant-wide digital strategy