Ingredient cost creep
Ingredient prices change weekly. Most SMEs reprice their recipes quarterly at best. The gap — between what you planned to spend and what you actually paid — compounds silently across every batch you run.
Margin Intelligence · UK Food & Beverage Manufacturing
Find exactly where
your batch margin is going.
In 7 days. Using data you already have.
Talos analyses your last 30–60 days of production data and shows you exactly where margin is being lost — ingredient variance, yield loss, labour drift — quantified in £. No software installation. No IT involvement. Just answers.
From £2,500
5× ROI guarantee
Report in 7 working days
No integration required
01 / The Problem
The Data Fog that costs you margin every month
Most food manufacturers think they know their batch margin. They're estimating. The Talos Audit tells you the exact number — and where it's going.
Yield variance uncaptured
Every batch that produces less than planned is a loss nobody measures. Most food SMEs track planned yield. They rarely compare it to actual yield per run — and never quantify the cumulative £ impact.
Ghost stock draining cash
Capital tied up in ingredients with no active job allocation. Expiring batches. Over-ordered lines that never move. Most MDs know it's there — nobody has quantified it in £ and matched it back to the production schedule.
Batches with unrecorded variance
Roughly a third of production runs in a typical F&B SME have a material deviation from plan — over-portioning, line inefficiency, substituted ingredients. Almost none of these are costed and reported to the MD.
02 / How It Works
Three steps. No integration. No IT involvement.
You export a file. We do the analysis. You receive a board-ready report that tells you exactly where the money is going — in £.
Send us your data
Export your last 30–60 days of batch production and purchase data from your ERP (Sage, Access, or Excel). Three clicks. Send via our secure ProtonDrive link. No software installation. No IT team required. If you can't export from your system, we provide a simple template instead.
Day 0 · 30 minutes of your time
We run the analysis
Our data pipeline processes your export off-site — automatically mapping your columns, normalising formats, and calculating price variance, yield variance, and usage variance per batch. Every deviation from plan is found and quantified in £. You do nothing while this happens.
Days 1–5 · Zero client involvement
You receive the Talos Health Report
A 15-page board-ready PDF delivered in a 45-minute video call. Executive summary, batch-by-batch variance table, top 3 loss drivers with exact £ values, and specific recommendations. Every number comes from your own data — not industry averages.
Day 7 · Report + delivery call
03 / The System
Three stages. One margin intelligence layer.
Every client relationship follows the same path. Audit first. Then monitoring. Then platform access as the product matures.
Stage 01 · Entry Point
7-Day Batch Margin Audit
£2,500
Send us your ERP export. We process it, calculate your price variance, yield variance, and usage variance per batch, and deliver a 15-page board-ready report. Every finding quantified in £. Guaranteed to identify at least 5× the audit cost in actionable savings.
Every relationship starts here. No exceptions.
Stage 02 · Ongoing Intelligence
Monthly Margin Monitoring
£500–£800/mo
Monthly data refresh using your latest ERP export. Delta comparison against your audit baseline. Automated alerts for ingredient price spikes, yield drift, and ghost stock build-up. A 3-page monthly update report delivered to your inbox.
Turns a one-time audit into a permanent margin guard.
Stage 03 · Platform
Talos OS
Coming 2027
The full Talos Operating System — real-time margin tracking, inventory intelligence, capacity and labour analytics, and multi-site rollups. Built on the same data infrastructure as the audit. No new integration required when you're ready to activate it.
The platform for manufacturers who never want to guess again.
Stage 04 · Scale
Multi-Site & Enterprise
POA
Consolidated margin intelligence across multiple sites or group entities. Custom ERP connectors, PE-backed group reporting, and dedicated account management. Built on the same proven pipeline — scaled for complexity.
For groups ready to standardise operational data across the portfolio.
04 / The Entry Point
7 days. A report that pays for itself.
The Batch Margin Audit is not a consultancy assessment. It is a data instrument that finds specific, quantifiable margin losses in your production runs. Every finding has an exact £ value attached to it.
You send your ERP export
Export your batch production and purchase data from Sage, Access, or Excel. Three menu clicks. Send via our secure ProtonDrive link. That's the only thing you do. No site visit. No questionnaire. No preparation that consumes your team's day.
Our pipeline processes it automatically
The Talos data pipeline normalises your export, maps your column headers to canonical fields, and runs three variance calculations per batch: price variance (what you paid vs. what you planned), usage variance (how much ingredient was actually used), and yield variance (what you produced vs. what you planned).
Every deviation is found and costed
The top loss drivers are ranked by £ impact. Not percentages. Not industry benchmarks. The actual £ figure your business lost across the audit period — per ingredient, per product line, per batch run.
Board-ready report delivered in 7 days
15 pages. Executive summary, batch variance table, top 3 loss drivers in £, specific recommendations. Delivered in a 45-minute video call. Written for an MD, not a consultant. You can act on it the same week.
↗ Typical Audit ROI — Protein / Meat Processing Scenario
Audit investment
£2,500
Chicken over-portioned by 8%
Identified across 18 production batches
£6,300/mo
Ingredient price drift (unrecalculated recipes)
Supplier increase not propagated to BOM
£2,100/mo
Yield loss on Line 2 vs. Line 1
Same product, 4% yield gap undetected
£1,800/mo
Total monthly savings identified
£10,200/mo
The audit doesn't need to find £100k to justify it.
It needs to find one number the MD can act on this week.
It needs to find one number the MD can act on this week.
05 / Case Evidence
What the audit finds
These scenarios are composites drawn from real UK SME food manufacturing patterns. Every number is grounded in industry data and Talos audit methodology.
Ready meals producer · 45 staff · £4.8m turnover · Bristol
Ingredient cost running 11% above recipe standard
Supplier prices had risen three times in 18 months. The BOM hadn't been updated. Every batch was being costed against a recipe that no longer reflected actual ingredient costs — the MD had no idea how much this was worth until the numbers were run.
£2,500
Audit cost
£74k/yr
Margin exposed
30×
ROI multiple
Chilled sauce manufacturer · 28 staff · £2.4m turnover · South Wales
Yield 6% below plan — for 9 months undetected
Production logs showed planned yield. Nobody compared them to actual output systematically. A 6% yield gap across the main product line had been running for three quarters. The number had never been calculated or reported. It was visible in the data on Day 1.
£2,500
Audit cost
£38k/yr
Yield loss costed
15×
ROI multiple
Bakery group · 60 staff · £6.2m turnover · Somerset
£52k of stock with no active production allocation
Ghost stock — ingredients purchased for jobs that had been delayed, cancelled, or reformulated. Capital sitting in a cold store, invisible to the accounts team. Matched back to production history in the audit: 14 ingredient lines, £52k, some approaching expiry.
£2,500
Audit cost
£52k
Ghost stock identified
21×
ROI multiple
06 / Questions
Common questions
If something you need isn't answered here, book a discovery call and ask directly.
Two days on-site, plus a written report delivered within 5 working days. Before you arrive we send a brief pre-visit request — one email, six items maximum — so we can make the most of our time. No lengthy questionnaires, no preparation that consumes your team's day.
No. The Sprint maps your data landscape as it actually exists — spreadsheets, ERP exports, paper job cards, email trails, all of it. If your data isn't ready for an intelligence layer, we tell you honestly and can scope a data preparation phase as a billable first step. We never promise AI results on bad data.
No. The sweet spot is manufacturers with 15–80 staff and at least 12 months of historical job data in any format. If you're quoting more than 20 jobs per month and have at least one experienced estimator, the Sprint will find something actionable. We work with precision CNC, sheet metal, general engineering, and aerospace subcontract.
No. The Quoting Intelligence System gives your estimator a data-grounded starting point instead of relying purely on memory. They still apply judgement, catch the unusual jobs, and make the final call. The system makes them faster and more consistent — it doesn't replace their expertise. Think of it as giving your best estimator a very good assistant.
That hasn't happened. But if the Sprint surfaces nothing genuinely actionable, the report says so. We don't manufacture recommendations to justify a build. The report is honest, specific, and yours to keep regardless of what happens next. You've still mapped your data landscape and quantified your current state — that's useful on its own.
We debrief in a 30–45 minute call, 1–2 weeks after delivery. We walk through the findings, answer questions, and let the report speak. No hard sell. If you ask about next steps, we describe the build in plain terms. If you're ready to proceed, a one-page proposal arrives within 48 hours. If you're not ready, the problem will still be there when you are — and it will cost more by then.
We use your data, not industry averages. Before we arrive we request six specific items — your quote log, a sample of completed job cost records, your delivery history, and a few others. On-site we run the calculations against your actual numbers. For quoting: your job volume × your average job value × your measured win rate gap gives us a precise revenue figure. For knowledge risk: we find mispriced jobs in your cost records during periods when your key estimator was absent, then project that forward. For OTD: we pull your delivery records and calculate your real on-time percentage against customer-confirmed dates — not what the system shows. Every number in the report comes from your own records. You can argue with a consultant's opinion. You can't argue with your own data.
Your ERP collects data. Talos turns that data into margin decisions. Most SME food systems — Sage 50/200, Access, Epicor, or Excel — were built for recording transactions, not for calculating yield variance per batch or identifying which ingredient lines are drifting from your recipe standard. We work with your existing ERP exports as a data source. No replacement, no migration, no IT project. The intelligence layer processes what you already have.
In most cases, yes. Made Smarter is a UK government-backed programme offering SME manufacturers in England grants of up to £5,000 for digital technology adoption. The Discovery Sprint and the intelligence layer systems both typically fall within the eligible technology categories. We can advise on the application process during your initial call — in many cases the Sprint cost is fully covered.
Discovery Sprint: 2 days on-site, written report within 5 working days. Intelligence layer build: 4–6 weeks from Sprint sign-off. From first conversation to a working Quoting Intelligence System: typically 8–10 weeks. No open-ended bespoke projects. No three-month discovery phases. The timeline is fixed before we start — because we've built this system before.
Ready when you are
Find out exactly where your batch margin is going.
Book a free 20-minute Margin Clarity call. We ask about your production process, your ERP system, and what your biggest margin frustration is. No pitch. We listen first. If there's no fit, we'll tell you.
Free 20-minute call · Bristol & South West · Remote available nationwide