Why Food and Beverage Manufacturers Trust Dynamics Square
60+
Implementations in Manufacturing
35+
Manufacturing and Supply Chain Consultants
14+
Years Serving Canadian Manufacturers
Business Central or Supply Chain Management for Food and Beverage Manufacturing
Dynamics Square offers two Dynamics 365 ERP solutions for food and beverage manufacturers: Business Central and Supply Chain Management. The right choice depends on your production needs and business size.
Dynamics 365 Business Central
It is suitable for bakeries, specialty food manufacturers, craft breweries, distilleries, beverage start-ups, and co-packers operating across one to three facilities with stable recipes. Key capabilities include production orders with bills of materials, lot tracking with expiry dates, earliest-expiry picking, and the Quality Management module.
Explore Business Central
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
It is suitable for dairy, meat, seafood, and ingredient processors, as well as larger beverage manufacturers. These businesses often need percentage-based formulas, co product tracking, catch weight pricing, or production management across multiple sites. Key capabilities include formula management, batch attributes, shelf-life dating, catch weight items, and quality orders.
Explore Supply Chain ManagementFood businesses demonstrate compliance through a preventive control plan and records available for inspection by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Dynamics 365 supports these requirements with lot traceability, date controls, and inspection results.
Match My Plant to a ProductWhat Compliance Requirements Must Food Manufacturing ERP Meet in Canada?
Canadian food manufacturers must maintain records to meet seven key compliance requirements. Dynamics 365 supports these requirements through traceability, date controls, quality records, and product data management.
Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR)
The SFCR sets licensing, preventive control, and traceability requirements for food businesses. Companies that manufacture, package, or label food for interprovincial trade, or import food, generally need a Safe Food for Canadians licence and a written preventive control plan. Records demonstrating that the plan works must be kept for two years after preparation.
Traceability
Businesses covered by the SFCR must record the food’s common name, the name and address of the manufacturer or packager, and a lot code or other unique identifier. Records must also identify suppliers, receipt dates, customers, shipment dates, and ingredients with their receipt dates. These records must be kept for two years, with electronic copies provided to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) as a single file that opens in standard software.
Recalls
The SFCR requires licence holders to maintain complaint handling and recall procedures as part of their preventive controls. Lot records that connect ingredients, production batches, and customers help teams identify affected products and trace their distribution during a recall.
Allergen Declarations
Health Canada identifies nine priority allergen categories: peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans and molluscs, soy, wheat or triticale, and mustard. Sulphites and gluten sources must also be declared when applicable. Allergen information must appear in the ingredient list or in a separate “Contains” statement directly after it.
Bilingual Labelling and Date Marking
Mandatory information on prepackaged food must appear in both English and French. A best before date is required for prepackaged food with a durable life of 90 days or less. Food manufacturers must manage product dates and label information to support these requirements.
Front-of-Package Nutrition Symbol
Prepackaged foods that meet specified levels of saturated fat, sugars, or sodium must display the front-of-package nutrition symbol. The thresholds are 15% of the Daily Value for most foods, 10% for foods with a reference amount of 30 g or mL or less, and 30% for prepackaged main dishes.
Sales Tax
GST, HST, and provincial sales tax rules vary by province and product type. Basic groceries are generally zero-rated, while products such as snack foods and confectionery are generally taxable. Food manufacturers must apply the correct tax treatment to their products and sales.
What Dynamics 365 ERP for Food and Beverage Manufacturing Needs to Do
A food manufacturing ERP must help teams trace a product from its ingredients to the customers who received it. If a customer reports a problem with one case, staff should be able to identify its ingredient lots, production batch, and other affected deliveries within minutes. The following capabilities help make this possible.
Lots and Batches
Every ingredient, intermediate product, packaging material, and finished product receives a lot number at receipt or production. Production orders record the ingredient lots used and assign a new lot number to the finished output. This allows Dynamics 365 to support batch tracking from goods receipt through production and dispatch.
In Supply Chain Management, batch attributes record test results such as moisture and sugar content against defined tolerance limits. The system also supports merging lots of the same product when production requirements call for it.
Recipes and Formulas
In Business Central, each recipe is managed through a production bill of materials, with dated versions and certification details. Supply Chain Management provides controlled formula management, requiring approval and activation before a formula can be used in production. It also supports quantities based on batch volume or ingredient percentages, along with staged ingredient consumption.
These capabilities help manufacturers manage recipe changes and variations in raw materials between deliveries.
Best Before Dates and Earliest Expiry Picking
Both products support expiry date management for items that require it. Business Central can block expired lots when strict expiration posting is enabled. When FEFO picking is configured at the warehouse location, it directs staff to pick stock with the earliest expiry date first.
Supply Chain Management lets manufacturers define shelf life, best before periods, and expiry periods for each product. It can also apply customer specific minimum remaining shelf-life requirements during shipment planning. For example, a retailer requiring 60 days of remaining shelf life receives stock that meets the configured requirement.
Allergen Data and Label Feeds
Allergen information can be recorded against items or batches, helping production, warehouse, and dispatch teams identify relevant details during handling. Label wording, bilingual layouts, nutrition facts tables, and sanitation validation require appropriate labelling tools and food safety procedures. During discovery, the implementation team maps how allergen and product data moves between the ERP and these systems.
Quality Inspection and Holds
Business Central introduced Quality Management in its 2026 release wave. It supports inspections linked to receipts and production output, with failed lots held until an authorised person releases them, subject to the configured processes.
Supply Chain Management supports quality orders, formal non-conformance tracking, and sampling plans. These capabilities help manufacturers manage inspection schedules, record failures, and control products that do not meet quality requirements.
Traceability and Recall Searches
Item tracing follows a lot through purchasing, production, and sales transactions. Staff can enter a supplier lot to identify finished product lots that used it and determine which customers received them. Supply Chain Management also provides traceability across shipped sales orders.
This information supports food traceability and recall investigations. Before go-live, a mock recall using your own data can test whether teams can identify affected products and trace their distribution.
Planning, Yield, and Costing
Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and master scheduling help balance demand, available stock, and production capacity. Supply Chain Management supports formula-based production for batch and continuous processes. It can record co-products and by-products, such as whey or spent grain, in inventory and allocate costs across the outputs of a production run.
Catch weight items allow manufacturers to track products such as cheese, meat, and seafood by actual weight while handling cases with different weights. This helps maintain accurate inventory and costing records across production and warehouse operations.
Business Central vs. Supply Chain Management for Food and Beverage Manufacturing
The cards above help you identify which solution fits your operations. The comparison table below explains the key differences and helps you discuss your options with your IT team.
| Aspects | Business Central | Supply Chain Management |
|---|---|---|
| Best suited to | Bakeries, specialty food, craft beverages, co-packers | Dairy, protein, ingredient makers, multi-plant beverage |
| Production model | Production orders with bills of materials (Premium licence) | Formula-based process manufacturing, batch and continuous |
| Recipe control | Versioned bills of materials | Approved and activated formula versions |
| Lot tracking | Lot numbers with expiry dates | Batch numbers with attributes, merging and reservation by attribute |
| Shelf life | Expiry date, strict expiration posting, earliest-expiry picking | Shelf advice, best before and expiry dates, customer sellable days |
| Sold by weight | Typically added through a partner app | Catch weight items |
| Quality control | Quality Management module with lot blocking | Quality orders, non-conformance handling, sampling plans |
| Allergen data | Item attributes or partner apps | Batch attributes built around your allergen list |
| Organizational scale | One plant, one legal entity | Multiple entities, sites and currencies |
| Starting licence (Canada) | Premium: $149.20 CAD/user/month | Standard: $284.90 CAD/user/month |
Business Central Premium suits food manufacturers with stable recipes and a small number of facilities. It supports daily operations, including lot tracking and quality inspections.
Supply Chain Management suits more complex production, where formulas change with ingredient quality, production creates saleable co products, or products are sold by actual weight.
Dynamics 365 can work with separate labelling, nutrition analysis, laboratory, and weighing systems. During discovery, we review the tools you already use and plan how lot numbers and allergen data reach the right labels and scales.
Get a Platform RecommendationHow Does Dynamics Square Help You Find the Right Fit
Food manufacturing ERP must match your production processes. A bakery with fixed recipes has different needs from a dairy that produces several products from one batch. Choosing software that exceeds your needs can increase costs and implementation time, while a system that lacks essential features can leave your team relying on spreadsheets.
Dynamics Square starts with a fit assessment before recommending an ERP solution for your food and beverage business. We review how you manage recipes and batches, how many facilities and provinces you operate across, whether you sell by unit or weight, and what your customers and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) require. These details help us recommend the right solution for your operations.
Book Your Free Fit Assessment
How Dynamics Square Implements
Dynamics Square follows Microsoft's Success by Design framework for food manufacturing ERP implementations in Canada.
Discover
Dynamics Square’s consultants review your production floor and receiving dock to understand how you manage recipes, lots, and best before dates. Plus, they also identify the records required by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and your customers.
1
2
Initiate
Next, our team of consultants defines the project scope, selects the right Dynamics 365 product, and assigns responsibility for recipe and item data.
Implement
Next, Dynamics Square configures lot tracking, expiry dates, and quality controls, then loads and verifies recipes and item records. We also connect labelling and laboratory systems where required.
3
4
Prepare
Your team tests real production scenarios, completes system training, and conducts a mock recall before go live.
Operate
Our consultants support your team through initial audits, seasonal production peaks, and recipe changes after go live.
5
Dynamics 365 ERP Pricing for Food and Beverage Manufacturing
The pricing below shows Microsoft’s list prices in Canadian dollars per user, per month. Your total cost depends on the number of full and occasional users, along with any additional labelling and weighing scale systems your business needs.
Business Central
Essentials
From $108.50CAD/user/month
Finance, sales, purchasing and inventory with lot tracking
Premium
From $149.20CAD/user/month
The shop-floor tier, adding production orders, bills of materials, MRP and Quality Management
Team Members
From $10.90CAD/user/month
Occasional users who view data, approve requests and make light updates
Supply Chain Management
Standard
From $284.90CAD/user/month
Formula-based production, catch weight items and quality orders
Premium
From $407.00CAD/user/month
Standard plus deeper analytics and financial planning
Implementation costs are separate from software licences. A single facility using Business Central needs a simpler implementation, while a multi plant Supply Chain Management project involves more work, including recipe migration and traceability setup across facilities.
Get a Custom QuoteWhy Canadian Food and Beverage Manufacturers Choose Dynamics Square
Dynamics Square’s team has delivered over 60 manufacturing implementations, bringing practical experience to food and beverage ERP projects.
More than 35 manufacturing and supply chain consultants help assess your production needs and select the right Dynamics 365 solution.
Projects begin on the production floor, where we review lot tracking, date controls, and recall procedures before designing the system.
Dynamics Square recommends Business Central or Supply Chain Management based on your requirements, even when the simpler option is sufficient.
Our certifications cover both Dynamics 365 products, supporting a balanced comparison based on your operations.
Dynamics Square helps your team manage seasonal demand, product launches, recipe changes, and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) audits.
Our experience working with Canadian manufacturers helps us account for bilingual labelling, provincial tax differences, and Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR) record keeping during project planning.
Frequently Asked Questions
One database holds the purchasing desk, the receiving dock, the recipe book, the production schedule, quality results, stock, shipments and the general ledger. For a food or drink maker, ingredient lots, production runs and customer shipments share the same item records, so a question about origin or destination gets one answer. Microsoft's route to this is Dynamics 365, where Business Central covers the small to mid-sized end and Supply Chain Management the larger and formula-driven end.
Start with recipes and sites. Settled recipes at one to three facilities point to Business Central Premium. Percentage-based formulas, co-products, catch weight products or plants in several provinces point to Supply Chain Management. A producer that sits between the two can sort it out in a workshop with our consultants.
Dynamics 365 gives each ingredient and finished product a lot number at receipt or production. A production order logs which ingredient lots it used and opens a lot for what it produced, so the link from raw material to finished case stays intact through picking, transfers and shipping. Supply Chain Management extends this with batch attributes and batch merging.
Business Central stores the recipe on a production bill of materials, with versions that carry start dates and certification status so an approved change goes live on the day you choose. Supply Chain Management manages it as a formula, where each version is approved and activated before production, and quantities may be tied to batch volume or to each ingredient's share. Your answer on whether ratios shift between batches points to the right product.
Expiry dates are covered in both products. Business Central excludes expired lots from picks once strict expiration posting is enabled, and Supply Chain Management adds best before and shelf advice periods per product along with customer sellable days. Allergen details sit on items or batches as attributes, and your food safety plan decides how labels and cleaning schedules use them.
Know Where Every Lot Went Before Anyone Has to Ask
Give your team the lot traceability, best before control and quality records that make recalls narrow and CFIA audits routine.
Book a Free Consultation Today