How Can Food Manufacturers Improve Yield Without Compromising Quality?

In high-volume food manufacturing, maximizing yield while maintaining product quality is a critical, but often conflicting, goal. Operations managers, quality leaders, and R&D teams constantly face the pressure of reducing waste, optimizing resources, and maintaining consistency across batches and facilities. The key to solving this challenge lies in adopting precise, real-time monitoring and measurement technologies that enhance process control from start to finish.

The Yield vs. Quality Dilemma

Improving yield typically involves tighter control over ingredient inputs, minimizing giveaway, and ensuring fewer production stops due to quality issues. However, pushing yield too aggressively can lead to:

• Overhydrated or underdeveloped dough in baked goods
• Inconsistent fat or moisture levels in food, dairy and meat, for example
• Subpar sensory characteristics or poor shelf-life stability
• Increased rework or waste due to failed quality inspections

This is where integrated analysis tools from KPM come into play.

Improving Yield Starts with Precise Measurement

KPM offers technologies that empower food producers to control product formulation and process conditions tightly at the speed and scale that industrial production demands.

1. Near-Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy for Inline and At-Line Monitoring

NIR systems allow real-time monitoring of key parameters such as:

• Moisture
• Fat
• Protein
• Ash
• Total solids

By using NIR sensors at-line or integrating them inline on the production line, manufacturers can make minute-by-minute adjustments that prevent over- or under-processing, boosting yield without slipping outside specification limits.

‍Customer Success Example: A major dairy producer used KPM’s SpectraStar™ XT NIR system to measure protein, fat, and sugar levels in yogurt during production. The solution improved product consistency, reduced waste, and enabled tighter control across multiple facilities.

2. Flour and Dough Analysis in Bakery Lines

For bakery manufacturers, flour consistency is a significant variable in yield loss. Our specialized flour and dough analyzers help:

• Measure flour properties and functionality, including moisture, protein, ash, water absorption, and starch damage 
• Build specifications based on recognized industry standards
• Predict dough behaviour under different conditions
• Optimize mixing times and hydration levels

This insight enables standardization across ingredient lots and production facilities, minimizing batch failures and improving end-product volume and texture.

Customer Testimonial

We teach our students, who are trained for management positions in grain milling and process technology, that it is critical to obtain accurate measurements throughout the process. The Alveolab, Mixolab, and SDmatic 2 from KPM Analytics quickly and effectively get you those vital measurements.” 

-Michael Weber, Principal of the Swiss School of Milling (St. Gallen, Switzerland)

3. Automated Vision Inspection for Food Quality, Safety, and Compliance

Vision inspection systems offer high-speed, non-contact analysis of visual product characteristics, packaging, and surface defects. These systems can inspect products from the top and bottom to:

• Detect color variation, shape deformation, and surface flaws
• Verify portioning in prepared meals
• Identify non-conformities such as burnt spots, excessive flour, or misaligned seals
• Provide a wealth of data about products and processes
  

This level of automation reduces human error, supports compliance, and improves consistency across production lines—all while operating at full line speed.

‍Customer Testimonial: “My background is in Six Sigma lean manufacturing, so data is really important for making decisions and having the right sample size. Prior to this data we were making decisions on a small sample size, and we weren’t able to make good decisions. The new vision system provides a sample size encompassing 100% of the product coming off all three production lines and rejects product that is out of spec. Our employees love it. It’s a communication tool to tell where we’re at with waste in real-time.”

‍Marcus Garcia, Bakery Director, La Brea Bakery (Van Nuys, California, USA), Source: “Innovate the Way Out: Ana & La Brea Bakery” Baking & Snack Magazine; May 2021

4. AI-Based Foreign Material Detection and Removal

Unwanted foreign materials—such as plastic, bone fragments, gloves, wood, broken pieces of tools, or a piece of the conveyor belt—pose serious food safety and brand risk issues. Using our trained AI-based models, KPM’s vision-based detection systems help:

• Identify foreign objects based on color, contrast, shape, and reflectance
• Trigger immediate removal through mechanical diversion or line alerts
• Prevent downstream contamination and costly product recalls
• Inform on better safety procedures to prevent foreign materials from entering the production stream
  

Manufacturers can preserve yield by catching these issues in real time without compromising safety or brand integrity.

Product Validation and R&D Support

Product validation plays a critical role in food manufacturing by helping teams ensure consistent quality while improving yield. By testing formulations and processes early, manufacturers can catch quality issues before full-scale production, reducing waste, downtime, and costly recalls. With KPM Analytics’ solutions—such as NIR analyzers for measuring moisture, protein, and fat content, and flour and dough analyzers for understanding ingredient behavior—teams gain rapid, actionable insights to fine-tune recipes, optimize processes, and scale up with confidence.

R&D support complements validation by driving continuous improvement. With KPM’s tools—like the SpectraStar XT NIR Analyzer for moisture, protein, and fat, or CHOPIN’s Alveolab and Mixolab for dough and flour analysis—R&D teams can optimize formulations and ensure labeling compliance. In poultry processing, the TheiaVu® WD-300 benchtop vision system helps R&D teams objectively measure visual attributes like breading coverage, color, and portion shape during product development. This allows teams to define clear appearance standards, test against customer expectations, and ensure visual consistency before scaling up, helping reduce rework and protecting yield.

Customer Success Example: A major U.S. poultry producer sought to enhance the consistency and efficiency of their quality control processes for butterfly chicken breasts. By integrating KPM Analytics’ TheiaVu® WD-300 benchtop vision inspection system, they transitioned from manual inspections to automated, objective measurements. This shift enabled them to increase product sampling by 3x, capturing detailed data on size, shape, and surface characteristics. The implementation improved product quality, reduced waste, and streamlined data collection, facilitating real-time decision-making. Inspired by the impact of these results, the company expanded the use of TheiaVu® systems across multiple facilities.

From Reactive to Proactive Operations

When quality issues are only discovered after production, it’s often too late, the damage is done, and the batch may require rework or disposal. KPM technologies empower teams to act before problems escalate, saving time and materials.

Our systems help turn process variability into controllable outcomes, allowing your teams to:

• Reduce ingredient overuse
• Cut down batch variability
• Improve right-first-time production rates
• Standardize outputs across global facilities

Final Thoughts

Improving yield and maintaining quality aren’t mutually exclusive goals—they’re mutually dependent. With the right tools, food manufacturers can uncover inefficiencies, tighten control over critical variables, and confidently scale production.

At KPM, we provide the measurement technologies that empower you to incorporate assurance into every product, every time.