EU CPG Regulation: The Real Challenge Is Data Integrity Across the Supply Chain

On 12 October 2026, IIoT World published an interview by Lucian Fogoros with Neil Smith, Segment President for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) at Schneider Electric. The theme: regulatory compliance in consumer goods is, in practice, a data issue. Because this is an interview, the positions expressed are the vendor's own and not an independent analysis.

Background: an efficiency gap between sectors

According to the projection cited in the article, by 2030 food and beverage manufacturers could lose 36% of potential revenue to inefficiencies. For life sciences the estimate is about 33%, three percentage points lower. The article does not give a source for this projection, so the figures should be treated with caution.

The explanation offered for life sciences' advantage is twofold: FDA requirements on drug release and approval pushed the sector to build a digital data infrastructure earlier, and it had greater cash flow. Food and beverage, by contrast, has adopted technology more cautiously and incrementally.

The new European rules

Smith points to two regulatory fronts coming in the EU:

• packaging obligations requiring molecular-level declarations on packaging materials, not just on the consumable product;
• new cybersecurity requirements for connected production systems.

According to the interview, the rules affect US multinationals and any exporter to Europe. The article does not name the specific regulations, nor does it give deadlines or details on penalties, so anyone planning interventions will need to check the applicable legal texts directly.

A data problem, not just a compliance one

"This looks like a regulatory problem. The reality is it's a data management problem."

The central argument is that the necessary data exists but is scattered across disconnected systems: work orders, planning, scheduling, inventory control and supplier order fulfilment. A molecular-level declaration requires tracking materials from the supplier, through production, to final packaging. No single-plant system covers that scope.

According to Smith, companies that connect their systems into an "information-enabled" enterprise can meet the obligations and, at the same time, build the structured data foundation that artificial intelligence at scale will require.

Why it matters for automation professionals

Commercial slant aside, the message is technically sound: compliance depends on traceable, reliable data flowing across suppliers, MES/SCADA, ERP and packaging. It is a problem of data integrity and provenance. This is where system integration, audit trails and tamper-evident records come into play.

On that last point, a clarification: the original article does not mention blockchain. Whether blockchain-style approaches could help share verifiable records among parties that do not fully trust one another is our own assessment, to be weighed case by case against simpler solutions such as databases with immutable logs and digital signatures.

Practical guidance

For a food or CPG manufacturer exporting to Europe, some reasonable first steps are:

• map where data on materials and packaging currently resides (ERP, MES, quality, suppliers) and who owns it;
• check whether a packaging lot can be linked to the supplier and to the production lot, in both directions;
• define audit trails and data change rules, so that every record is attributable and cannot be silently altered;
• include connected production systems in the assessment of cybersecurity requirements;
• identify the exact regulations that apply and their deadlines before choosing technologies.

In short, the interview offers neither technical solutions nor timelines, but it makes a useful point: before any tool, you need traceable, reliable data from one end of the supply chain to the other.