On the Line Ep. 3: The Clean-Label Impact on F&B Manufacturing

From Frozen Aisle to Fresh Food: What Consumer Demand for Clean-Label Means for Food and Beverage Manufacturers

Welcome to On the Line with Laminar, our series where we go inside the world of process manufacturing to hear what's really driving change on the production floor. Catch Episode 1 on Peak Sauce here and Episode 2 with Laminar co-founder Annie here.

In this episode, Sanjay Rajan, Head of Go-to-Market at Laminar, sits down with Bobby McLaughlin, Director of Customer Success at Laminar and former Welch's veteran with hands-on experience in customer operations and product commercialization. They discuss the decline of the frozen food aisle, the demand for fresh food and beverages, and how the explosion of SKU diversity is raising the stakes for manufacturers trying to support clean-label claims — and how real-time quality monitoring is becoming a critical tool for it.

Catch the video or check out the transcript below!

Why the Frozen Aisle is Losing to Fresh Food and Beverages

Sanjay: You were right at the center of commercializing frozen concentrated juice at Welch's. Why did it decline? And what are the bigger takeaways?

Bobby: I think back to my grandmother pulling frozen concentrated juice out of her freezer on a hot day for my brother and me — orange juice, grape juice, lemonade. That was a treat.  It was a luxury item for her generation, having frozen foods in the freezer.

And I think that has a lot to do with it. That item is no longer perceived as a luxury or a high-value item for today's more active consumers — especially as that generation is no longer around.

Next time you go walk into a grocery store, think about where people are. The frozen aisle is usually the sleepiest aisle in the store. What's one of the busiest? The perimeter. What's on the perimeter? Fresh — or perceived-fresher items.

The Sustainability Story Is Two-Sided

Sanjay: From a sustainability and cost perspective, it's non-trivial to make frozen products, package them, and ship them. What's the story there?

Bobby: It's a two-sided coin — and both sides are tied to consumer preferences.

From the production side: frozen concentrated juice is heavily processed, concentrated, frozen, shipped in frozen trailers, and then kept in frozen cases at the store. High energy costs at every step of that journey.

From the consumer side: people want the least amount of processing in the products they pick for themselves or their families. The less processing, the better.  

So the sustainability story cuts both ways — the energy footprint of the process, and the consumer desire for something less processed.

Clean Labels Are a Manufacturing Requirement, Not Just a Marketing Term

Sanjay: What are you seeing from companies working to ensure their clean label claims are consistent with what consumers actually expect?

Bobby: Clean label is a global term now — as a marketing term and as a manufacturing practice. The more things on a label, the less likely a consumer is going to convert. People are looking at labels. They want to be able to pronounce the ingredients.

And when you're making a claim — "100% this," "free of that," "organic" — you cannot make those claims without being able to prove it down to the lot number. There are teams of people, from food science to legal, making sure those claims are supportable. You really need to be sure you can claim it.

Where Real-Time Inline Sensing Fits In

Sanjay: Is there a specific example where Laminar's technology is being used for clean label and real-time quality — built into the process, not just as a claim on the label?

Bobby: Outside of our core Clean-In-Place and changeover optimization work, we're partnering with some bigger brands to leverage our sensor and platform technology to monitor ingredients and product quality — giving customers the ability to track that data with very close tolerance and prove those claims to food and beverage regulatory agencies.

Sanjay: You can't just rely on inputs and outputs — it's too late by then. The goal is making the production process self-correcting as you go. But every factory also needs to get the basics right around cleaning and changeovers first. All that investment in inline quality falls apart if you have an underwash event or a chemical overdose that upsets the whole apple cart.

Bobby: Yep, I would agree.

What's Next?

That wraps up Episode 3 of On The Line with Laminar.

To see how Laminar's real-time inline sensors and AI-driven CIP and changeover optimization work in practice, explore our customer stories or talk to the team.

Catch up on episodes you missed here:  

• On the Line, Episode 1: Peak Sauce and CIP Bottlenecks

• One the Line, Episode 2: Factory Floor to Founding Laminar

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