Food Tariffs and Effects

Why Saving Money Is More Important Than Ever For Food Manufacturers And How Your ERP Software Can Help

Food Tariffs and Effects

Are you concerned about the food tariffs being placed on various items? Will your company be affected? Are you at a loss for what to do? If so, you’re not alone as 1.6 million people work in the targeted industries with three-quarters of those affected in farming, fishing and food-related manufacturing. In July, the Trump administration proposed a 10% duty on a wide range of imports from China. These tariffs could increase to 25% and if they do hit American-caught or raised seafood that’s being processed in China, profits for fisheries and aquaculture operations will most likely plummet. For Pacific Northwest seafood being imported to China, this added cost is no longer a matter of “if” as Beijing responded to the Trump administration’s move to implement extra levies on Chinese goods with a 25% tariff of their own on Pacific Northwest seafood, including Alaskan fish. The Chinese response didn’t just include seafood, they also imposed tariffs on multiple agricultural products including specific fruits, vegetables, grains and more ranging from 15-25%. But new tariffs aren’t only coming from China. In response to the U.S. imposition of steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports worldwide, Canada, the EU, Mexico and Turkey imposed tariffs on a variety of U.S. goods including food products such as cucumbers, corn, cranberries, apples and other fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. With the added costs these tariffs bring, food manufacturers can’t afford to waste time, money, or resources.

Update 2/13/2019: If the U.S. and Chinese negotiators are unable to reach an agreement by March 1st, which is the end of the 90-day trade-war truce agreed upon in December, then the U.S. plans to increase the tariffs from 10% to 25% on almost half the goods the U.S. buys from China. This could result in additional tariffs placed by China on U.S. goods, which could also result in the U.S. following through on threats to implement additional duties on at least $267 billion worth of more goods.

How You Can Save Money (And NorthScope Can Help)

Facing these tariffs can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be diminishing. While these tariffs may not be avoidable, you can avoid wasting money by increasing efficiency and ensuring product quality.

With NorthScope You Can…

Increase Efficiency:

• Populate data on the fly with inventory transactions that create lots for you when they don’t exist, allocate sold inventory items to lots based on your business rules, and adjusts lot balances according to inventory received, produced, adjusted or transferred.
• Be fully integrated. Reduce the likelihood of user-error with internal sales, inventory, brokerage, and financial integrations, along with full Dynamics GP integration, EDI integrations, bar code system integrations, time-clock integrations, and up-to-date integrations with eLandings.
• Stop spending time on remedial tasks and start spending time strategizing. Configure your system by location and user for ease of use, find answers easily with information all in one place, and stop worrying about duplicate data entry.

Ensure Product Quality:

• Increase profits by cutting costs. Track both the manufacture and expiration dates of products to ensure you use or sell your oldest product first, reducing the costs associated with disposing of expired items or inadvertently issuing expired product to the production floor. Place holds on lots to ensure that quality procedures, such as inspection, can be performed in a timely manner without affecting other production schedules.
• Make informed and accurate decisions regarding what, how much, and when to order. View a detailed real-time analysis of your inventory levels with on-hand, on-hold, allocated, and available item balances to prevent running out of product your customer needs and losing revenue or a repeat customer. On sales transactions, view the lot balances of the item being sold and select the lot from which to allocate the item directly on the transaction.
• Maintain well-kept food quality documentation. Easily record the test results from tests completed on various food products to identify their composition. Create specific lists of tests for each type of produced product and record the test results specific to that batch once the testing has been complete. Easily identify product that does not meet the necessary requirements for certain standards to prevent recalls before they happen as well as identify product that meets or exceeds these requirements to determine the appropriate buyer.

Don’t let the tariffs bring you down, schedule a demo and start saving money today.