Use AI-powered insights and supplier performance data to stack the deck in your favor (and cut costs).

In today’s high-stakes food and beverage landscape, the odds aren’t always in your favor. Ingredient costs are up. Margins are tight. And every sourcing decision feels like a game of chance. But the most successful brands aren’t just playing to stay in; they’re playing to win.

And that means knowing exactly what’s in your hand.

Your cards? Supplier performance data. 
Your ace? AI-powered COA validation. 

By collecting and analyzing detailed performance metrics—delivery reliability, documentation accuracy, spec compliance—you gain the kind of insight that helps you negotiate better prices, recover lost costs, and avoid overpaying underperformers. When you sit down at the table with your suppliers, you’re no longer betting on relationships or gut instinct. You’re playing with a full deck, and using every card to your advantage.

Let’s look at five ways to turn that data into real, measurable cost savings.

1. Stop the guesswork: centralize your supplier data

In a high-stakes game, flying blind is a surefire way to lose. Yet many brands still operate with fragmented data scattered across plants, spreadsheets, and filing cabinets. Without a centralized system, you risk missing patterns that could cost you, both in quality and price. 

Delivery delays in one location might be dismissed as a fluke. But when aggregated across facilities, you might discover a consistent trend that points to a deeper issue. And that’s exactly the kind of insight that can inform future contracts or give you grounds to renegotiate. 

Your Play: Consolidate supplier performance data into a centralized platform for consistent, plant-wide visibility. 

2. Speed up material decisions with real-time data

In card games, timing matters. And in operations, slow decisions around received materials can create costly delays. Without fast, data-informed acceptance or rejection, materials sit in limbo—clogging docks, disrupting workflows, and jeopardizing shelf life. 

When performance data flows in real-time—especially delivery timing, temperature compliance, and shelf-life info—you can act decisively. That means smoother dock operations, better inventory turns, and fewer last-minute fire drills. 

Your Play: Integrate supplier data into ERP and inventory systems to speed up acceptance decisions and reduce held materials.

3. Hold suppliers accountable, automatically

Even the best players make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean you should eat the cost. If a supplier consistently underperforms, you need a way to hold them accountable—without creating more work for your team. 

Digital systems make it easy to log non-conformances, trigger chargebacks, and ensure corrective and preventative actions are completed. Instead of chasing paper trails, you track resolution in real time. And when it’s time to sit down with that supplier again, you’ve got the receipts. 

Your Play: Automate non-conformance tracking and chargebacks to recover costs and enforce performance standards. 

4. Bring data to the negotiating table

When it comes time to renegotiate pricing, the best hand you can bring to the table is one backed by supplier performance data. Objective metrics—like on-time delivery, spec compliance, COA accuracy, and issue resolution—give you a clear view of who’s helping your bottom line… and who’s not. 

Instead of vague anecdotes, you show up with hard data. Suppliers who perform well can be rewarded with additional volume. Those who don’t? You’ve got the leverage to negotiate more favorable terms, or walk away. 

Your Play: Bring 360° supplier performance data to every pricing conversation to ensure you’re getting what you pay for. 

5. Use AI to validate COAs at scale

You can’t play the game right if the cards are missing or misread. That’s exactly what happens when teams rely on manual COA checks and scattered systems to validate inbound materials. Critical information gets delayed, overlooked, or lost altogether. 

With AI-powered COA processing, every inbound material lot is reviewed instantly and consistently. No matter the format, every COA is validated against your specs, and potential issues are flagged before they hit the production line. That means fewer delays, fewer quality surprises, and far more leverage when it’s time to talk terms. 

In the game of supplier management, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) is the ace up your sleeve—an AI-powered solution built specifically for food and beverage compliance, turning documents into actionable data and smarter supplier decisions. 

Your Play: Deploy AI to validate 100% of inbound COAs, instantly flagging quality issues before they become production problems.

The winning hand: Supplier Compliance with IDP

TraceGains’ Supplier Compliance with Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) ensures you’re never caught playing with a weak hand. By automating COA analysis and consolidating performance data—across every site and shipment—you gain a strategic view of supplier behavior and risk, with no gaps in the deck.

State-of-the-art IDP uses secure AI to accurately read and interpret inbound COAs, even when documents are nonstandard, inconsistent, or unfamiliar in format. It’s faster and more accurate than manual review, instantly analyzing 100% of inbound COAs and flagging any potential issues for human investigation. That means no bad hand slips through, no matter how it’s dealt. With TraceGains IDP, you’re no longer relying on luck or labor; you’re relying on data that’s always in play. 

With IDP, you get: 

• Accurate, automated COA validation at scale 

• Real-time issue detection and non-conformance logging 

• Centralized dashboards for supplier performance trending 

• Immediate visibility across all plants and material lots 

No more guessing. No more bluffing. Just smart, data-driven decisions that give you the upper hand.

Ready to start playing a smarter game?
Let’s talk about how TraceGains can help you turn supplier performance data into your strongest suit.