What is Driving Food and Beverage Supply Chain Resilience?

In its latest Cold Chain Insights survey, Lineage explores how food and beverage companies are navigating complexity in today's market.

As operations face ongoing changes and regulatory pressure, leaders are making investments into data and prioritising resilience.

Through the integration of data and strong logistics partners, food and beverage leaders are seeing real operational growth in their businesses. 

Lineage insights

Lineage is a global leader in cold chains logistics, with one of the world's largest global temperature-controlled warehouse REIT. It has a network of more than 500 strategically located facilities which total 88 million square feet, across North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe.

It combines end-to-end supply chain solutions and technology to develop distribution efficiency for some of the leading food and beverage producers and retailers. 

Its Cold Chain Insights survey takes insights from 1,000 decision-makers across the US, Canada and Mexico. It explores how leaders are planning to navigate 2026, using the experience from 2025's volatility.

It found that companies are prioritising collaboration, investments into data and automation and in developing resilience.

For food and beverage leaders who rely on consistent, temperature-controlled supply chains, resilience is key to making sure the products can arrive at their destination at the quality expected of them, with total confidence in safety. 

“Supply chain leaders are operating in an environment where volatility is the norm, not the exception,” says Greg Lehmkuhl, President and CEO of Lineage. 

“As companies navigate 2026, the focus is on making faster, better-informed decisions, using flexibility, insight, and technology to keep operations running reliably.”

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Cold chain demands

Cold chain logistics is a specialised, temperature-controlled supply chain management of perishables, ensuring these items maintain their quality, safety and effectiveness from origin to final delivery.

It requires refrigerated storage, temperature controlled transport – reefers – and specialised packaging to prevent the items from entering an unsafe temperature.

It is a tightly controlled supply chain, with leaders investing in new technologies to make sure each step of the process is tracked and meets conditional expectations.

The food industry is already shifting strategy to navigate the ever-changing market and regulatory conditions which impact day-to-day supply chains. This includes rising outdoor temperatures, weather instability and demand for faster delivery. 

Data from the survey reveals that tariffs and regulations (36%) are the main cause behind external instability, which is followed by inconsistent partners (32%), climate disruption (31%) and rising freight and fuel costs (25%). 

Looking ahead, 73% of leaders are anticipating tariffs to continue to negatively affect their 2026 finances, 57% say that impacts of tariffs were higher than expected on 2025 costs, with 95% of leaders saying they had to adjust their strategic plans over the last 12 months in order to navigate shifting policy. 

Throughout all of this, the cold chain is becoming increasingly important to the global landscape, with 72% of leaders reporting rising demand for refrigerated and frozen foods. 

Building resilience

In order to meet growing demand while navigating market volatility, leaders are investing in their resilience strategies. Throughout the survey, a clear link between resilience efforts and technology adoption is shown, as 60% of leaders say that data and AI rank as the top methods of operational transformation in 2026. 

There is a growing focus on transportation optimisation (45%), real-time visibility (44%), AI-informed decision making (44%) and warehouse automation (41%). Leaders are seeing a real growth in operations through the implementation of AI, with improved coordination (45%), boosted efficiency (37%) and strengthened strategic decision making (34%).

Through this, 24% report that they have already exceeded ROI expectations following investments into AI, with a further 62% meeting or nearing their targets. 

By investing into AI, food and beverage companies are seeing significant transformation, but they also need to develop strong collaboration with 3PL partners who can help grow this resilience even more. Complexity is growing, which means third-party logistics providers contribute to how strong a supply chain can be – particularly a temperature-controlled one. 

Resilience is a necessity, which means leaders are prioritising logistics companies which can demonstrate the ability to navigate complexity. As a result, companies are increasing visibility and tracking (40%), expanding supplier networks to include domestic markets (38%) and strengthening risk management strategies (38%). 

With supply chain diversification, as well as increased visibility, businesses are minimising the risk they face on a regular basis. With this prioritisation, leaders are looking towards investments that can improve operational efficiency, meet consumer demand at a high speed and accelerate growth as a result of mergers and acquisitions.