BLS & Co. helps food and beverage industry clients gain a competitive advantage by determining the most strategic location for their manufacturing plants and distribution centers. Our studies are designed to find locations that balance optimal supply chain network designs with locations that meet other operating requirements, contain costs, and minimize risk. Services for location strategy and site selection include:

• FEASIBILITY ANALYSES: The stay-or-go decision often precedes site selection and typically presents BLS & Co.’s clients with a choice between expanding an existing facility or establishing a new operation at a different location. Each alternative offers specific advantages and challenges that must be carefully reviewed and understood. BLS & Co. works with clients to identify and test alternative deployment scenarios then quantify both the one-time project costs and the impact of any changes on annual operating expense. We also identify and assess the possible impacts on the company, its people, customers, stakeholders, etc.
• SITE SELECTION: At BLS & Co., we help clients optimize their location choices via deep process expertise, problem solving skills and situational awareness. We employ the most effective analytical tools and databases available to evaluate labor markets, logistics, costs, regulatory environments and other critical location variables. We also bring specialized expertise to the assessment of utility infrastructure and energy pricing and to the impact of location on supply chain networks. We carefully integrate site selection with business incentives and real estate negotiations, and our clients’ overall project schedules.
• LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN NETWORK OPTIMIZATION: Integral to many food and beverage processing location decisions is the evaluation of transportation costs, shipping methods and service levels for existing and proposed manufacturing, assembly, and warehousing locations. BLS & Co. helps food & beverage companies address issues related to supply chain including transportation cost analysis and comparison, network optimization, evaluation of number and location of plants, supplier identification, waste reuse/disposal opportunities, and other concerns.
• LABOR MARKET ANALYSES: In an era of contracting labor supply and growing demand for specialized skills, successful companies will have to compete for employees in much the same way they contend for customers. BLS & Co. helps clients understand whether a particular location can sustain their business by thoroughly analyzing the availability, quality and cost of local labor. We evaluate factors such as wage and benefit patterns, education/skill level, labor market stress, labor-management relations, productivity, training resources, and unemployment/ underemployment levels. For food clients, this includes production and packaging workers, as well as special engineering and quality control workers as required for their operation.
• PROPERTY DUE DILIGENCE: We help clients manage the property due diligence process including collection of critical property information and coordination of professional engineering studies. These efforts are often coordinated with the incentives negotiation process to ensure all site development incentives opportunities are met. We often perform these activities in collaboration with best-in-practice engineering and construction firms (Michelle Comerford, our Industrial and Supply Chain Practice Leader spent more than 10 years within an engineering/construction firm and is adept at engaging with project engineers).